


all the shadows of our love

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Harry Potter AU, Hogwarts or any other hp characters don't actually appear, M/M, Magic, Memory Loss, Viktor is sad, by that i mean it's set in the harry potter universe, like really really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Viktor wakes up and he knows something is wrong. It's something in the way he breathes, something missing in his soul.He wakes up in a world where he no longer dances, where the crown he's worked so hard to get has been taken from him and he doesn't even remember why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is nearly a year in the making and was nearly scrapped twice that I am genuinely surprised that I actually finished it. The fact that it got this long is something that I never could have predicted. Many thanks to the people who read this over for me and cheered me on when all I wanted was to give up on this fic. Many thanks to the mods of the bigbangonice as well for giving me the motivation to write.
> 
> Thank you to my artist [ayahne](http://ayahne.tumblr.com) as well, for her amazing pieces and being just a wonderful person in general.
> 
> Warnings: I didn't quite know how to put in the tags, but Viktor is really, really sad in this fic. There are a lot of instances here which can be interpreted as suicide ideation, so tread carefully. He is just generally unhappy with his life and his situation.

One of the many things that wizards never quite got right--at least not in the way that muggles did--is architecture.

They never had much of a mind of it, to be frank. Muggles are the revolutionaries when it comes to creating things, not wizards. Wizards  love to claim that they’re better, of course, but ultimately, they’re imitators. They built it bigger, more impressive, but still an imitation. The moment wizards have finally figured out how to create gilded halls, the muggles have already created palaces. Wizards have only figured out basic topiary when the muggles have created gardens hanging from the sky. The rewards of hard work, he supposes. One doesn’t really have reason to think creatively when you can just wave your wand and go on as how it’s always been done. Muggles never had that luxury, so when they build, they build it to last a thousand years. It’s only human to want to be remembered, after all, no matter what skills you have at your disposal.

Imitations can never really copy the real thing. There’s always going to be that  _ one  _ thing missing. Something undefinable but inexplicably important. Muggles are rarely imitators. Wizards, most of the time, are.

The theatre that Viktor is standing in now is impressive. It lacks the warmth and exuberance that muggle theatres seem to positively exude, but Viktor can’t deny that it’s impressive. Open-aired, like most air dancing theatres are, large enough to hold more than a thousand, no doubt; walls filled with layers upon layers of sound charms to ensure that the music echoes at just the right pitch, just the right angle to give the best effect. And those are just the  _ preliminary  _ spells. 

The seats are lined with dragon skin, carpets, a constant blood red. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see the banners, the floating lights, the sound of chatter and the sparks of spellwork. A performance to go down in history, Lilia had called it, which is fitting for the kind of story they’re trying to tell. But then again, that’s what all of Lilia’s performances were. Viktor doubts that the word ‘mediocrity’ is actually in her vocabulary. There’s nothing new there. Nothing exciting. 

Viktor hadn’t stepped in a theatre like this in six months; not since his accident.

It’s only now that Lilia’s finally,  _ finally,  _ let him out of her clutches and back to the world where he belongs. She hadn’t done it willingly but Viktor’s not about to question it. He grips the leather seat with white-knuckled hands. His feet are still unsure, tentative, in the way he never had been before. The shadows seem to be choking him. It’s only been six months and it’s already been too long. It shifts and turns out of the corner of his eye. There was a time when he felt more at home in a theatre like this than his own house, but now… but now…

Well, he lost his crown. He’s given up any right to call the theatre home after that.

The shadows continue to shift, as if mocking him. Viktor lets out a shaky breath. Air dancers always thrived on being fast-paced, on constantly changing, constantly morphing, constantly evolving in a world that seemed intent on standing still, and Viktor had revelled in it. He’d been the best at it, shedding each personality like coats for each performance. He had been the best.

But now, he’s terrified that it’s left him behind.

“This is my home,” he says. The words echo strangely against the vast silence. He tries to convince himself of their honesty.

The shadows are turning, moving, dancing. Viktor’s heart is beating wildly in his chest. Muggle theatre’s never made him feel like this, but that’s not very surprising. He’s never had to perform in a muggle theatre, never had the weight of everyone’s eyes on him, expecting him to fail, and then, later on, expecting him to be nothing less than perfect. Expecting the unexpected.

What happens to an artist if everything they do has already been done before?

The shadows continue to shift, jumping, morphing, transforming in a way that’s more than his imagination. Viktor looks up and oh.

Oh.

He’s not alone, apparently. 

A figure, half-hidden in shadows, is gliding across the air, limbs reaching out, stepping across the air with practiced ease. Viktor can’t quite see his face--and it is a he, isn’t it? Viktor can’t quite make out the figure’s face but there is something almost familiar about it; something that echoes in the chambers of Viktor’s soul.  _ He knows  _ this dancer. He knows that desperation in those arms, knows the confessions in those spins, and the love in those leaps. The dance is happy, in a sense, but it’s a little sad, too. A little like love. Love is happy, of course it is, but it also a little too close to loss; giving every part of yourself up in the hopes that something will be given in return. The sight of it makes Viktor heart ache.

If there was a song to this dance, it would be something about longing, perhaps. Something about loss. It’s too sad, he thinks. Too sad for someone as beautiful as the figure. He can almost see him in other dances, something happier; still about love but not about losing it but about finding it. The figure doesn’t need a song, his movements were enough. It may be the most beautiful thing that Viktor’s ever seen.

Sadness has a strange way of capturing beauty; it leaves you aching and breathless at the same time.

Viktor thinks he sees a flash of familiar blue on the figure’s head. The thought makes his heart ache but soar at the same time.

A name escapes his lips, softer than a breath. It’s a beautiful sound, settling comfortably on his tongue like it’s meant to be there. Maybe the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

The shadows suddenly stop. The figure shouldn’t have,  _ couldn’t  _ have heard, not in this large theatre, but somehow he does. Sound echoes too well in a wizarding theatre, bouncing across thick walls and carried by the empty air; the most careful murmurs become declarations and Viktor has rarely been careful. 

The figure’s head whips around and the spell breaks. There’s always that moment of stillness that Viktor’s come to recognize over all his years in air dancing, that moment where there’s nothing anyone can do but hold their breaths and wait for the inevitable. The calm before the storm, or in this case the fall. The moment stretches out, a second, maybe more, and Viktor’s breath catches in his throat. He can’t seem to make himself move. His knees are trembling and his grip on the seat tightens.

The fall doesn’t come. The figure looks to Viktor. He almost looks like he’s falling but not quite, there is still some semblance of control in his movement as he takes slow, jerky motions to the ground before landing lightly before Viktor. He’s wearing muggle clothes but it’s clear he’s a wizard, an air dancer. Air dancers never look quite comfortable on the ground. His hand is shaking, holding his wand against his chest, somehow managing to keep the spell in place. Viktor is frozen. The words he wants to say seem to be stuck in his throat. Nestled on the man’s dark locks is a crown of intricately woven blue flowers.  _ His crown. _

“Vitya,” the man says, voice cracking. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Viktor feels before he knows that he’s fallen to his knees. The carpet is soft; furs, he thinks distantly, though he can’t tell what kind. The world is slipping, tilting, parting all around him. A storm of images descend upon him, so much, too much. Dances and laughter, the glint of gold and the warmth of a hand holding onto his. The flash of blue and a weight being lifted from his chest. Dreams but not quite, more like memories but they couldn’t possibly be because he doesn’t--he can’t--the man is the most beautiful thing Viktor’s ever seen and--

“Yuuri.” The name comes to him, softer than a breath. His hand reaches out of its own accord. “Yuuri.”

A sound that is too much like a sob escapes the figure’s trembling lips. Viktor wants to reach out, wants to hold onto the beautiful creature and wipe those tears and take that sadness--so much sadness. A creature that beautiful shouldn’t hold so much sadness within them--away, but his limbs are petrified. He tries to open his mouth but no sound comes out.

“I’m sorry Vitya. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have seen this.”

“Wha--”

Viktor closes his eyes and the world descends into darkness.

  
  


~0~

  
  


(Screams. Screams that are not his. Begging for something that he knows will not be granted.

The woman looks to him, eyes pure white, with no emotion. No sympathy. Eyes he has known since a boy, when he made a promise he couldn’t have possibly kept. She does not care. Her kind is too old for such things. She is not human and it was he mistake for believing that she was. She will collect her retribution.

“You will forget,” she says. “You will forget and you will remember and it will take something from you everytime.”

A scream full of agony.

A cold hand presses against his forehead, sharp claws digging into his hair, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

“Forget,” she says and he does.)

  
  


~0~

  
  


  


  


Viktor sees the most beautiful man sitting across from him and there’s nothing he can do but stare.

Dark hair coupled with bronze skin, eyes hidden behind glasses in those odd styles that muggles use. He’s hunched over himself slightly, like he’s not sure why he’s there, talking softly with a younger, fair-haired man. The man stands out in his muggle clothes. Viktor has tried to catch his eyes several times but to no avail. He gets the sense that the man is watching him, but whenever he looks over, his eyes are very pointedly elsewhere. 

In any other instance, Viktor would have gone over there immediately, talked to him perhaps, found out his name, looked into those beautiful brown eyes. Perhaps even…

But no, not this time. Viktor is trying to put up a different image this time, and he really is trying. He’s not here as a dancer, as Lilia had so often reminded him, during their late night practices. He’s here as a choreographer. 

Not as a dancer but a  _ choreographer,  _ as if his six months of inactivity didn’t sting enough already _. _ And choreographers don’t interrupt fellow choreographers--especially if that choreographer is Lilia Baravnoskaya and technically your boss--while she goes around the room, all stern gazes and tight lips, sizing up her hand-picked dancers.

At any rate, Lilia’s let him get away with far more. She’s used to it by now.

He’s a dancer, he’s always been a dancer, and in the back of his mind, he knows that he’ll always be a dancer. Always. He can’t imagine being anything other than a dancer. Dancers retire, of course, move onto other things, but Viktor’s not ready for that yet. He still has a good many years inside him.

He  _ knows  _ he’s not ready to give it up just yet.  _ He knows.  _ He’s the greatest air dancer in history and how can he be that if he’s not  _ dancing _ ? The blue crown isn’t his anymore but it shouldn’t have changed anything, shouldn’t have taken--

Lilia stops over to where the beautiful man is sitting, her lips going especially thin and making Viktor’s curiosity piques even more. Lilia’s exacting to a fault and has higher standards than just about anyone. She’s nearly impossible to get a reaction out of, let alone impress. The only other time Viktor’s seen that reaction from her is… well, when she’s looking at him.

She says some words to the man, tilting her head in Viktor’s direction, or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him; he certainly wouldn’t mind if they were talking about  _ him _ . The man looks down and shakes his head slowly. Viktor would kill to know what they’re talking about. Actually, come to think of it, he’d kill just to hear the man’s voice or have his eyes on him. 

He waits for Lilia to move on from her inspection before subtly taking out his wand and performs a little spell; nothing he hasn’t done before. He hasn’t done it since he was sixteen and eager to prove something, though. No matter. It can’t be  _ that  _ different. A single, blue rose appears on the man’s dark locks. The man jumps, eyes landing on Viktor. He turns red before his eyes widen and he pales.

“What are you doing, Vitya?” an amused voice asks. Viktor turns towards Chris, who is sitting at his right. Chris is watching him with twinkling eyes, chin resting against his hand and a smirk on his lips. Viktor shrugs, unashamed.

“He’s beautiful,” he says. “He deserves flowers in his hair.”

Chris lets out an amused laugh, the sound of it ringing like bells. It has nearly everyone in the room turning to him almost instantly. Chris, of course, revels in the attention, like he always does. Viktor’s always suspected that the man was part veela, second, maybe third generation, but could never find a polite way to ask. It doesn’t matter, anyway, and not at all unheard of in their line of work.

“Of course you would think that,” Chris says. “But you should probably stop. You know how our Yuuri hates having the attention to himself.”

“Yuuri.” Viktor tests the word out and finds that it fits perfectly on his tongue, snuggling there and staying like it’s meant to be there. “That’s a beautiful name. The most beautiful name I’ve ever heard.”

Chris lets out another giggle, like what Viktor said is funny and not the absolute truth. Viktor ignores him and adds another blue rose to Yuuri’s locks.

“Well, like I said, our Yuuri doesn’t like attention and it probably won’t end well for you if you put all of it on him. A blue crown, honestly.”

“Ridiculous,” Viktor says. What air dancer doesn’t like attention? Who hasn’t dreamt of the blue crown? That’s what they thrive on. On making sure that people  _ are  _ paying attention to them, making sure that everyone is paying attention to only them. From sweeping gestures to daring falls to grand spectacles of spellwork, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many times they fall from dangerous heights or trip over the steps or burn themselves with spellwork, as long as right at the end, when they perform, no one can look away.

Their entire lives are a fight towards perfection. The crown is just an added bonus.

He adds another flower to Yuuri’s hair, forget-me-nots this time, a darker blue than Viktor prefers but they look lovely on Yuuri’s locks. Something less gaudy, less likely to draw attention. He adds a couple more daisies into the mix, because it brings out the color of his beautiful eyes. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Chris lets out another snort. He mutters a few words under his breath but Viktor is too focused on his task to give a damn.

“Viktor Nikiforov!” Lilia’s sharp voice snaps Viktor out of his thoughts. “Put your wand away and pay attention this instant!”

Viktor does as he’s told, feeling his cheeks pinking slightly. Lilia does have a way of making anyone feel like an eleven-year-old schoolboy. Viktor thinks that it’s a skill she developed for him, especially.

"Now,” Lilia says, addressing the room around her. Viktor tries to pay attention, he really does, but this is a speech that Lilia’s been giving since he was still in school and he can probably recite it by heart at this point. 

He directs his attention back to Yuuri and is pleased to find that Yuuri’s attention is also on him. He’s staring at Viktor, hands fiddling nervously with his wand. Viktor withdraws his wand, much, much more discretely this time, and adds a third blue rose on his hair.

Yuuri doesn’t see, of course, but he must feel the added weight on his head. There’s a strange look in his eye along with a faint smile on his lips. He waves his own wand and a single, blue rose appears on Viktor’s lap.

Viktor barely manages to suppress a delighted laugh. Yuuri looks away, cheeks stained pink.

“You should probably pay attention,” Chris whispers. Viktor disregards it entirely. Lilia is sending him Looks but he’s more than used to them, and by this point, she’s more than used to his antics. It’s an odd working relationship they have.

“Remember,” Lilia is saying. “Forget yourselves; you do not dance for yourselves. You dance for the audience and you dance to tell a story. The story you will be telling is a story that many hold dear in their hearts, the story that holds pain and heartbreak for many people; pain and heartbreak that we all must remember. I expect nothing but the best from all of you.”

Viktor thinks that he sees Yuuri flinch slightly at those words. He turns his wand over in his hand thoughtfully. The best. He had been that once, worn the blue crown for all to see, but not anymore. Lost it to someone he can’t even remember.

He wonders how long it will take for everyone to forget him.

Lilia doesn’t take much more time after that. She details the schedule in short, terse words, and leaves them to their own devices. She stops to exchange a few words with Yuuri and the blond man sitting beside him. Yuuri shakes his head furiously. The blond man is clutching at his arm, a furious expression on his face. Only the first day and Lilia is already telling off her dancers. The sight of it almost makes Viktor’s smile. They’re off to a great start.

Yuuri shakes the blond man off. He catches Viktor’s eye. Viktor smiles slightly at him but Yuuri looks away quickly, a tight frown on his face. Viktor decides to take matter into his own hands and walks over to them, putting on his most charming smile. Lilia falls silent when she reaches them.

“I don’t believe I’ve met you, yet,” he says to Yuuri. He holds out a hand, waiting for Yuuri to take it. Yuuri stares at his hand as if it was cursed.

“I’m Viktor,” Viktor says. “I’m Lilia’s assistant choreographer.”

“I know,” Yuuri blurts out. “I know who you are.” He is staring at Viktor, face pale, still not meeting his eyes. The flowers are nestled comfortably on his hair and he is twirling one of the blue roses in his hand nervously.

“Come Vitya,” Lilia says. “I have some things I would like to discuss with you.”

“You go ahead, Lilia.” Viktor turns his smile towards her. It won’t work, of course, but it’s worth a shot. “I’d like to meet the dancers first.”

“Vitya…” Lilia lets out a frustrated noise. “There is no stopping you, is there?”

Viktor shakes his head. “No,” he says. 

Lilia turns to the blond man. He had been glaring at Viktor, fists clenched, from the moment he reached them.

“I expect you to handle this situation,” Lilia says. “Do  _ not  _ let this get out of hand.” The blond man nods tightly, jaw clenched. Lilia gives Viktor one last glare before turning on her heel and walking away.

Yuuri still hasn’t taken Viktor’s hand.

“I’m Viktor,” he repeats, giving his hand an enticing little shake. “And you are?”

“Yuuri,” he says, staring at Viktor’s hand. “Yuuri Katsuki. And I know who you are.”

Viktor lets his hand drop. The smile on his face tightens slightly.

"And you, kotyenok?” He turns to the blond man. “You seem familiar. Have we met before?”

The blond man stares.

“Koldovstoretz,” he says. “You choreographed a solo for me.”

Viktor tilts his head, trying to remember. It wouldn’t be an odd occurrence; Yakov is especially fond of calling Viktor back to Koldovstoretz and train the new batch of Russia’s greatest air dancers. Viktor is not especially of coming back to the castle’s cold, clinical halls, but he is especially fond of Yakov (though neither of them will admit it) so everything balances out in the end. There’s a snippet of a memory there, of a small blond boy, flying through the air like a magnificent fairy, far better than any of his peers, but full of so much rage.

“Yes,” he says thoughtfully. “Yuri Plisetsky, right? I’m sorry. I have a horrible memory.”

Yuri Plisetsky nods tightly, shoulders tense.

(A boy full of so much rage, so much ambition. Nothing interesting. There were a thousand like him. Most do not make it, consumed by their lack of control. Talent cannot save any of them. Talent was their downfall.

But there had been something, something that had drawn them together. Something that could have made the both of them beautiful.)

Viktor puts a finger to his lips. “And you’re also called Yuuri? That must get confusing. Do the two of you know each other well?”

“We’ve danced together a few times,” Yuri Plisetsky says. He’s glaring at Viktor, fists clenched, body tense, like he’s waiting to strike. Viktor doesn’t know what he could have possibly done to elicit such a reaction. Had he said something incredibly horrible the last time they met? It wouldn’t be very surprising if he had.

“Yurio,” Viktor murmurs. “I think I’ll call you Yurio. To avoid confusion, you know? It suits you, don’t you think.”

“We should be going,” Yuuri blurts out. He all but shoves Yurio towards the exit. “We have--We have things we have to do. It’s very nice to meet you Viktor.”

“Wait,” Viktor says. “Thank you for the blue rose, earlier. Lilia is such a bore, sometimes. I’ve been living with you for two months! Can you imagine? You’re probably the most interesting that’s happened to me in a while. And the flowers! They--They look very lovely on you.”

He’s stammering. He, Viktor Nikiforov, is stammering like a twelve-year-old instead of Russia’s most beloved air dancer. All he knows is that he has to make Yuuri stay. He needs Yuuri to stay, needs to speak with him and talk with him and be with him. Yuuri has to stay and there are still words between them that have to be said. It’s a silly thought. Yuuri seems to want to have nothing to do with him, can barely stand to be near him, but nonetheless, he  _ needs  _ Yuuri to stay.

To his surprise, Yuuri falls still. A beat of hesitation and he turns back to Viktor, ducks his head, cheeks turning pink and a small, shy smile on his face.

“They are very beautiful,” he says. “Why did you put them on me? We’re not competing and I didn’t win anything.”

Viktor could come up with a thousand reasons, right of the bat.  _ Because I’m impulsive. Because I like surprises. Because you’re beautiful and I knew that you deserved flowers in your hair, like the air dances in the paintings. Because there’s something about the way you hold yourself and I know that you’ve had so many flowers in your hair already. Because a part of me knew that you would smile at me like that if I did. Because I wanted your attention, I wanted your eyes on me and only me. Because blue roses are mine and I want everyone to know that you’re mine. _

_ Because you’ve already won my heart. _

The words are true and they make Viktor’s heart ache and his mind is a whirlwind of confusion. It’s… odd. It’s a bit much for a first meeting, even for him.

“Because you looked sad,” he says. “I wanted to see your smile.”

Yuuri looks up, surprised. The strange look that had been in his eyes earlier is back. Yurio tugs at his sleeve.

“C’mon Katsudon,” he growls. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re right,” Yuuri says, looking away quickly. He shakes himself, as if coming out of a dream. “I’m stupid. I’m so--I’m sorry but--Let’s go, Yura.”

Yurio all but drags Yuuri away by the sleeve. Yuuri’s hand is clenched around the single blue rose, nearly snapping its stem in two.

“I’m excited to see you dance,” Viktor calls out to them. Just to have those beautiful brown eyes on him, one last time. Yuuri and Yurio freezes. The blue rose snaps in two, falling to the ground.

“Katsudon,” Yurio says, face pale. He is tugging at Yuuri’s sleeve. Yuuri shakes his head, wrenches his hand away from Yurio, and walks away, fists clenched and shoulders shaking. 

He doesn’t turn back once. 

  
  


~0~

  
  


“When do I get to see Yuuri dance?”

They’re in Lilia’s office. Lilia is busy writing letters, the scratch of quill against parchment a steady sound. She’s writing to Britain’s Ministry of Magic, perhaps, or to some of the more generous sponsors. Arranging robes for the dancers and stage design. There are also spells to plan, music to think about, and perhaps a thousand other worries. Wizards might have the ability to make more grandiose productions than muggles (although that statement is still up for debate, In Viktor’s opinion) but it doesn’t make producing those any easier. 

Lilia doesn’t look up from her writing but the scratching of the quill falters, just for a moment. Though it may just be Viktor’s imagination. He’s always had fantasies of Lilia hesitating, even just for a moment, ever since he was a small boy.

“You will not,” she says. Her voice is careful, almost wary. “He’s blue crowned. I will see to his choreography personally.”

“Blue crowned?”

And that was definitely hesitation Viktor hears in Lilia’s writing. He frowns. The pause is long enough to be noticeable but short enough that it can’t have been anything but unintentional.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks that he sees a familiar pale face. He swallows and pointedly ignores it.

“I thought it was best if you are not involved.”

Viktor’s lips thin. “Who is he? How have I never heard of him before?”

“You’ve never cared much for other dancers, Vitya,” Lilia says. “That is one of your faults. And after the accident, it has only gotten worse.”

Viktor remains silent. Lilia’s right, of course. He never had much time for other dancers, or other people, really. Always too busy  dancing, too busy being the best. It’s hard to see anything past that, most of the time. 

“But still,” Viktor insists. “He must be very good.”

“He is the best.”

“Better than me?”

Lilia stops writing. She lays down her quill and covers the ink pot. She turns around to give Viktor an unimpressed stare. Though he’ll never admit it, it never fails to drive a chill up his spine.

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to.

“I think I can attend some of his practices,” Viktor says. “The group dances can’t possibly take up all of my time.” I need to see him dance, he doesn’t say. It’ a physical ache that’s lodged itself in Viktor since he first saw Yuuri. He needs it.

He is the man who took Viktor’s glory from him. Viktor needs to know if he deserves it.

Lilia sighs. “Did you read your schedule at all, Vitya?” she asks.

Viktor smiles sheepishly. Lilia sighs again.

“You won’t have time to watch Yuuri practice. You have your own group dances scheduled for all of them.”

“Oh.”

Viktor frowns He really wants to see him dance. He’d be an amazing air dancer, he thinks. Lilia doesn’t just picks dancers, she all but anoints them. She only chooses the best, or the ones who are better than the best. Phoenixes, she calls her dancers, which is fitting; you have to die more than once, shedding life and love and everything that comes in between to create the perfect dance and earn Lilia’s approval. But even without all of that, there’s something about the way Yuuri moves. The way he smiled at Viktor; it felt a little like music.

“I just want to help,” Viktor says. Lilia raises an eyebrow, not believing a word Viktor said.

“In this case, your help is not needed. Yuuri Katsuki is my phoenix. He’s mine to morph and change as I please. It’s time you created your own.”

“I don’t want to create a phoenix.”

“Then why are you here?” 

Viktor doesn’t answer, biting the inside of his cheek. He has never particularly wanted to create a phoenix, not when he still feels like one. Not when there’s an unending longing coiled around his chest to just be reborn one more time, and hope that this time, he’d finally get it right.

He woke up and learns his crown has been ripped away from him. He’s here because he doesn’t have anything else, nothing more.

  
  


~0~

  
  


(It was an accident. By god, it was an accident; forgotten promises and broken vows. He hadn’t meant to and-- He was careless and she is always gets what she believes is hers.

It was his mistake, his arrogance, and his alone to bear. He never needed to before and he knows that now, when he’s going to break his lover’s heart, he knows that he never will. Somehow, amidst all of that, the one he loves still finds it in his heart to forgive him.

“What’s going to happen?” his lover asks, holding him close. He is being strong because that is what’s needed of him.

He does not deserve his lover.

“I don’t know,” he says, helpless. “I don’t know.”)

  
  


~0~

  
  


Practice starts in earnest so simply and so smoothly that Viktor can’t help but be a little suspicious. 

Performers, especially magical performers, are superstitious creatures and everyone knows that practice going too well is nothing but a bad sign.

The performance is more abstract than what Lillia usually does. The costumes, the music, and the sets are specific enough that the audience will know that they’re talking about  _ the war, _ but no specific names, no specific events; it’s fluid enough that the audience can easily put themselves in their places. Which is for the best. There have been too many performances glorifying the deeds of people like Harry Potter that people tends to forget that other people had to live through the war as well, and their experiences were not nearly as exciting, or as memorable.

Lilia must have fought hard to keep the choreography, or maybe the British were as sick of the same seven performances as Viktor was. Maybe it was something in-between.

Viktor is in charge of the two big duets and one group dance. He’s working with Lilia for the rest of the group dances as she also choreographs the piece for Yuuri. As far as Viktor can tell, he doesn’t appear in anything else. Not in a group dance, not anything, which is a bit odd. It’s as if he wasn’t a part of the story at all, like he was a distant spectre. Viktor doesn’t have an idea about it; Lilia is remarkably tight-lipped about it.

Christophe is already at the practice room when Viktor gets there; his partner, however, is not.

“You’re early,” Viktor comments. He carefully unfastens his cloak and hangs it on the rack, along with his hat. The practice room is large, walls surrounded by mirrors. It’s not open-aired, like the theatre, but the ceiling is high enough that they’ll probably be safe.

(Viktor’s only hit one of those ceilings three times, and that’s mostly his own fault, although he always blames the architecture.

How was he supposed to dance the greatest air dances in history if he’s being confined by something as silly and mundane as  _ ceilings _ ?)

“I always am,” Christophe says. “Pichit is running a bit late. I heard he’s arguing with a Ministry official over flying carpets, of all things.”

“That’s an odd thing to argue about.”

“Thailand allows flying carpets. Britain, apparently, does not, and for some reason, no one bothered to tell Pichit any of this.”

“British officials are ridiculous,” Viktor says. Christophe lets out a hum of agreement.

“Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t get anything done while we wait for him. Come, sit.” He points to a spot on the floor. Christophe sits, or sprawls more accurately, on it. Viktor sits down right next to him.

“Well, what do you think of the story?” Viktor asks.

“It’s horribly depressing.”

“Rightfully so, I think.”

Christophe smiles knowingly and pats Viktor’s arm.

“We both know you don’t actually think that, cherie,” he says. “You’ve passed that phase what, ten years ago?”

“Maybe I’m trying something new.”

“But you’re not. Quite the opposite, I think.”

Viktor sighs. Christophe knows him too well. This is a conversation he definitely does not want to have right now. Well, this is what he gets for playing at being a choreographer.

“Let’s just focus on your part, alright? Leave the storytelling to Lilia and those ridiculous British wizards. I already have some rough choreography sketched out that I’d like you to try.”

Christophe hums in agreement. The door opens gently and a sharp-faced man carrying… wouldn’t you know it, a flying carpet. How he managed to carry that out in the open in the middle of London is a mystery. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” he says. “British officials stopped me as I was on my way here. They made me take  _ floo powder.  _ It was awful. They make you shoot up in a fireplace like some idiot!”

“You wouldn’t have this problem if you just learned how to apparate, cherie.”

“ _ Apparition has lost people limbs. _ ”

“And it is much quicker than flying and much more comfortable than taking the floo.”

“I am not losing an arm just to get somewhere quickly.”

Chris turns to him with the look he uses to judge wizard-folk who have clearly spent too much time in the muggle world. He’s very peevish about that sort of thing, as a lot of wizards who  _ do not  _ spend a lot of time in the muggle world are. Viktor shrugs. He couldn’t exactly argue with Pichit’s logic. He doesn’t favor apparition either, if he’s completely honest.

“Alright then,” Viktor says, clapping his hands together. “It’s just you two for now, right?” He doesn’t wait for them to nod. “Alright then, up in the air. Your dance is not easy and we’re going to be here a while. As I told Christophe, the dance is still pretty rough but we have no time to waste.”

Chris snorts. Pichit only grins up at him, as if in challenge. This is going to be interesting, Viktor can already tell from the beginning.

Their dance is complicated, or as complicated as Viktor usually makes them, which is probably ridiculously complicated. It’s violent, fast-paced, unforgiving, filled with anxiety, fear, and so much death. 

(Two nameless figures trapped in Diagon Alley during a firefight. Desperate to get away, holding onto each other. They might have been lovers or they could have been complete strangers, it doesn’t matter in that moment. All that matters is that in that moment, they’re going to die.)

“Faster,” Viktor calls out. “Tighter on those spins, hold onto him like your life depended on it Chris, pull him to you.”

Chris does, and Pichit is suddenly at eye level with him. The crash of a piano and Pichit breaks away from Chris’ grasp, falling. This is supposed to be his specialty. Viktor knows that Lilia chose Pichit for this for his particular talent for spellwork. He plays with fire a lot, and that’s beautiful. People can’t seem to look away from dangerous things. He falls in a shower of sparks and flames before stopping abruptly a moment before he hits the ground. Chris circles him, slowly, reaching him just in time to catch his head before it hits the ground. By that time, it’ll be too late.

Silence.

“That’s good enough for a first run through, I think,” Viktor says. “Although we have a long way to go. So run through it again.”

They run through it the thing three more times, not to mention the specific parts that Viktor is choosing to focus on, and it takes nearly four hours to finish all of it. Viktor, of course, is still not in the least satisfied.

“Where is Yuuri?” Christophe asks, bent over in exhaustion. “This would be going so much better if Yuuri were here.”

“It would be worse,” Pichit says. “Yuuri’s worse at practice than Viktor.”

“Yes but then they’d be  _ distracted. _ ”

What an odd thing to say. Had Viktor really been so obvious that Chris had noticed already. Well, that’s not entirely out of the question; Chris is remarkably perceptive on these kinds of things and Viktor had put  _ flowers  _ on Yuuri’s hair.

“Lilia won’t let me watch him practice,” Viktor says. “She thinks I’ll be distracted.”

Christophe laughs.

“Well, won’t you be?”

Viktor doesn’t answer. He’ll be, admittedly, incredibly distracted, but Chris didn’t have to point it out. Yuuri’s not even here right now and he’s already incredibly distracted. Viktor finds it hard to… focus on anything. Yuuri is pulling at his thoughts, or maybe it was Viktor who was gravitating towards him. It almost feels like an obsession and maybe it is. Viktor  _ needs  _ and it’s taking over every single though he has.

“Let’s just dance,” he tells Christophe.

Christophe laughs like he sees right through Viktor. Maybe he does. He’s always had an uncanny skill for it.

“Whatever you say, cherie,” he says. “Yuuri has always been too kind to you. Or perhaps too cruel. I can never tell the difference.”

“What do you mean?”

“Yuuri,” Christophe says. “He gives you too much one moment, and gives you nothing the next. I have no idea how you stand it.”

“What are you talking about Christophe?”

Christophe merely laughs again and this time, Pichit joins him. He gives Viktor a wink.

“I don’t understand,” Viktor says.

Christophe is too busy lifting up into the air to respond. Pichit is absently making sparks appear from his wand. They seem to be very pointedly ignoring Viktor. He’d expected Chris to be the kind of person to do that kind of thing, but apparently so is Pichit. Air dancers are known for their odd personalities. Rehearsals are going to be such a joy.

“Tell me what you mean,” Viktor says.

“You know exactly what I mean!” Christophe spins graceful as any nymph. The man definitely has some veela blood. It’s the only explanation.

Pichit shoots a jet of red and gold sparks, hitting him in the chest and he pretends to fall. The motion is staggered, as if he’s slipping down rope instead of falling to his death. It would have been beautiful if it weren’t for the fact that it’s completely ridiculous.

“Stop teasing,” Pichit says, even though there’s also a wide grin on his face. “Let’s get back to work.”

“You’re both horrible,” Viktor says. “Absolutely horrible.”

Pichit’s grin merely widens in reply.

They end an hour later with the three of them exhausted. Viktor is already choreographing other pieces in his head, compensating his own choreography for Pichit and Christophe’s distinct style. They both have a lot of innate flare, a little too much flare in Viktor’s opinion, if they’re going to pull off this kind of dance. Pichit and Chris are surrounded by fire, by this heat; fear is the opposite. Fear is supposed to make you cold inside, make your breathing stop and your heart stutter in your chest, as the entire world falls still as you see a familiar pair of dead eyes and jagged red lips and--

Viktor is colliding with something--someone. The same someone who is currently falling to the floor in a spectacular crash of dark hair and blue cloth. 

“Oh my god I am so sorry.”

“I’m so sorry. Merlin, I should have been looking where I was going but--I’ll just--I’ll just go now.”

“Yuuri.”

Yuuri is currently sitting on the floor, looking at anywhere but Viktor. His dark blue cloak is disheveled, falling on one shoulder and cloak clasp coming loose. He’s slumped over slightly in exhaustion, probably going home after a long practice session, like Viktor is. At Viktor’s voice, Yuuri blanches completely. He hastily scrambles up from the floor and all but runs towards the opposite wall. Viktor tries not to be too hurt by this.

“I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have run into you like that, I’ll just go--”

“Yuuri,” Viktor says. He gently lays a hand on Yuuri’s arm. Yuuri flinches and falls silent. Viktor pulls away, barely concealing a flinch of his own. “It’s fine. No harm done. You’re the one who fell, at any rate.”

“I’m fine,” Yuuri blurts out. “I’m just going to--”

“Lilia told me you’re blue crowned,” Viktor says. 

Yuuri coughs awkwardly, eyes flitting back and forth. He seems to be fighting the urge to run away and forcing his body to remain perfectly still. 

“I am,” he says.

“I’m sure you’re amazing. I wish I could see you dance but Lilia’s forbidden it. Any chance I could sneak into one of your rehearsals?”

“No!” Yuuri says. “I mean uh, you can’t. I--You can’t. It’s not going very well.”

Viktor tilts his head curiously. He tries to hide his disappointment but he’s never really handled outright rejection very well and from the look on Yuuri’s face, that’s definitely outright rejection. It stings more than it should.

“Are you sure? I’ll be well-behaved, I promise.”

"I’m sure you’ll be the picture of proper decorum.” Yuuri almost sounds teasing for a moment.

“So I can watch?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “You can’t. I’m sorry. I-I don’t want to disobey Madame Baravnoskaya.”

“Alright then.” Viktor is definitely not hiding his disappointment well. It’s so bad that he can hear it in his own voice; he can’t even hide it from himself. If he can’t lie to himself, who can he lie to? “Maybe you could join me for coffee, then. You’re done with practice, aren’t you? I passed a lovely looking muggle cafe earlier and I’ve been wanting to check it out.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

"Please.” Viktor is not above widening his eyes and pouting. Yuuri’s proven that he has an immunity to Viktor’s charms and his disappointment, but no one is immune to his cuteness. Viktor knows this. Georgi told him so in a grave voice and Chris had agreed.

Yuuri’s eyes widen and finally,  _ finally, _ land on Viktor. They’re a lovely shade of brown, dotted with flecks of gold. Viktor could get lost in them for an eternity. What he wouldn’t give to keep those eyes on him.

“I--I shouldn’t--”

Viktor widens his eyes even more and sticks out his lower lip. Yuuri lets out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair.

“Alright,” he says finally. “Alright. I guess it won’t do any harm.”

“Amazing! I’ll just get my cloak from the practice room and we can go. I was going to walk but we can apparate if you want or--”

“Walking sounds amazing Vit-Viktor,” Yuuri says softly.

Viktor claps his hand together and smiles. 

He can almost see the scene playing in his mind: the two of them next to each other, bundled up in their cloaks, shoulders brushing. Viktor would reach out slowly until their fingers are brushing, and then he’d take Yuuri’s hand into his and he’d see a flash of gold and--

He suddenly winces at the sharp pain in his head. He’d been getting those a lot ever since the accident. The healers could never figure out why. A sickness of the mind, they had told him, which is the exact opposite of helpful information. 

Yuuri looks alarmed. His hand is suddenly on Viktor’s shoulder. It’s a warm and familiar weight.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Fine,” Viktor says. The pain is already fading along with a snatch of  _ something. _ Something that he thinks is supposed to be important. “It happens sometimes.”

“A lot?”

“Sometimes,” Viktor repeats. “It’s nothing. Just migraines. They’re harmless. Let’s get those coffees, shall we?”

Yuuri doesn’t look very convinced. “Viktor I--”

“Yuuri. Please let it go. I swear I’m fine. Let’s just get some coffee.”

“Fine,” Yuuri says. He adjusts his cloak on his shoulders and re-fastens the clasp; two swans with their heads bent together. “Let’s go.”

Their walk to the cafe is probably one of the most awkward moments Viktor’s had to go through, which is saying a lot since Viktor once had to walk through an entire hallway with the headmaster of Kolodovstoretz after calling him a ridiculous toad of a man who couldn’t even fly, let alone dance even if a hundred witches and wizards cast a ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ spell on him to his face.

(Viktor had been seven. It was the first of many times where he narrowly misses being expelled. He’d never been particularly good with authority figures, see, and the Headmaster was a downright pain in the ass.

Sometimes Viktor wonders if he would have been better off if he had actually been expelled.).

It wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks, if it seemed that Yuuri wanted to be there, even a little bit. Viktor would be willing to take any little bit that Yuuri would allow. Instead, he’s standing nearly a foot away from Viktor, vibrating so much with anxious energy. The two of them must look like quite a sight to the muggles in their cloaks and odd clothes and expressions. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor sighs. Contrary to popular belief, he knows when to admit defeat. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Don’t feel that you have to be here. I can go to the cafe alone. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Yuuri’s eyes widen. “No no, it’s fine. I want to be here.”

Viktor merely raises an eyebrow in response. Yuuri flushes. He absently fiddles with his cloak clasp, running his fingers through the smooth planes of the clasp.

“I do,” he says.

“You don’t seem very comfortable.”

“It’s not you,” Yuuri says hastily. “It’s just--It’s me. I have a lot of things on my mind right now.”

“Oh? Maybe you can tell me. Perhaps I can help.”

Yuuri lets out a humorless laugh. It comes out more like a breath he’d been holding to stop himself from sobbing.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I swear. I wouldn’t bore you with my problems.”

“Alright.”

They reach the cafe. The awkwardness between them is palpable enough to cut with a knife. Viktor wants to say something, to comfort Yuuri perhaps, to say that Yuuri can trust him and the he can talk to him anything and Viktor would listen, but that’s ridiculous. They only met a few days ago. This is their longest conversation, even if it is their most awkward one. They’re nothing more than acquaintances, at best.

At worst, they’re complete strangers who happen to be working on the same dance. Yuuri has absolutely no reason to want to talk to him.

“I’m ordering,” Yuuri says, eyes trained on the counter. “What do you want to have?”

Viktor blinks, shaking himself. He can salvage this conversation. He has too. He really wants to be Yuuri’s friend, at the very least. “Just black coffee.”

Yuuri nods tightly. “Maybe you should go find a table. It’s a bit crowded. Don’t talk to the muggles,” he adds.

Viktor shakes his head ruefully, a small smile blooming on his face. He picks a table outside the cafe, where he can observe the muggles easily. They always seem to be in such a rush, barely looking at anything except where they’re going. Their buildings are sleek and high, made of steel and glass. Viktor still wonders to this day how they manage to build something that high without magic. He’s pretty sure wizards had never built something as impressive.

Watching them go about their daily lives, move across their streets, wearing their odd clothes is mesmerizing, like a dance Viktor can’t quite figure out. They seem so desolate yet crowded at the same time, just through sheer numbers. It’s hard to tell where friends turn into acquaintances and where acquaintances end and strangers begin. It’s so easy to get lost in their streets, full of sharp corners and straight lines. Wizards never really did well with straight; they prefer to be long, and winding, and completely ridiculous. They stay wrapped up in so many spells and enchantments that sometimes they forget that there’s an entire world out there, just waiting for them to see. Or maybe that’s just Viktor.

Somehow, he finds it hard to relax. The sun is bright but he can’t help but think that the shadows are watching him. It’s a familiar feeling but he’s never quite gotten used to it.

(It should be gone, shouldn’t it? Vows have been broken, dreams forgotten, memories lost. It should be over.

So why do the shadows seem to follow him as if he’d done something wrong?)

Yuuri returns with two large mugs. He seats himself gingerly across from Viktor. Viktor wonders what he’s supposed to be to Yuuri. They’re co-workers but Viktor wants something more than that. Yuuri doesn’t seem to want to be his friend but Viktor very much wants to be his. Usually, Viktor tries to find an in-between, but he doesn’t think that the in-between is enough for either of them, right now.

“Muggles are fascinating, don’t you think?” Viktor finds himself saying.

Yuuri shrugs. “I’m muggle-born,” he says. “I wouldn’t really know.”

Of course he was.

“Ah,” Viktor says. “You must find wizards fascinating then?”

“A little at first,” Yuuri says. “But… Not as much as people here, I think? Things are different in Japan than they are here. We don’t really keep as separate with the muggle world as you do here.”

“That sounds incredibly illegal,” Viktor says, and to his surprise, a brilliant smile blooms on Yuuri’s lips. It may be the single loveliest thing that Viktor’s ever seen and he finds himself smiling helplessly back.

“What the International Wizarding courts don’t know won’t hurt them,” he says.

“So tell me about your solos,” Viktor says. “You’re blue crowned and Lilia is ridiculously tight-lipped about you.”

Viktor had been pestering Lilia for days now and Lilia still has not budged. He wonders if she’s doing this out of spite; if this is her payback for all of the grief he had given her. But no, that’s really more of Yakov’s style. Lilia rarely bothers to be subtle.

“There’s really not much to tell. It’s not very good. I’ve been falling a lot.”

Viktor raises an eyebrow. Falling is elementary, something that they grow out of as children. It still happens, of course it does, but not often enough to be a problem at practice.

“I’m not a very good dancer,” Yuuri says.

Viktor’s eyebrow rises further. Yuuri seems to realize what he said because he bites his lip and stares at the table. He grips his mug like it’s the only thing grounding him. 

“It’s not like that,” he mutters. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I would think that the person who took my crown from me would be better than a child.” His voice comes out colder than he’d meant. The sting of losing the one thing he’d worked towards his entire life hurts more than he’d initially thought.

To his surprise, Yuuri just smiles. Not bitter or fake, only amused. It even looks half real. “I thought so too.”

Viktor puts a finger to his lips, thoughtful. “I have a feeling you’re being self-deprecating.”

Yuuri laughs again. It sounds very sad. “I’m really not.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Viktor says. “If you’ll let me see your dance, of course.”

It’s a stupid thing to hope for after everything that’s been said and sure enough, Yuuri is already shaking his head, even before Viktor’s finished speaking. Viktor wouldn’t have allowed it if he were in Yuuri’s place, either. To be judged is hard enough, but to be judged by someone who has great reason to resent you is something to be avoided.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But just--I wouldn’t want you to see something that’s not absolutely perfect. You’re a very good air dancer and I’m well… I’m not.”

“You’re a very odd air dancer Yuuri,” Viktor says.

“Am I?”

“You are,” Viktor says. “So how did it happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“The crown? You’d have to forgive me. I suffered an accident and my memory’s full of holes. I’m really curious about it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the shadows seem to grow. He thinks he see jagged lips opening in an angry snarl. He tightens his grip on his mug and forces all his attention onto Yuuri.

Yuuri doesn’t answer but there’s something about the way that he’s looking at Viktor, at the caught out expression on his face, the way he seems to want to be anywhere but here.

“You don’t want to tell me,” Viktor says.

“It’s not a very good story,” says Yuuri. “I always thought it was sad.”

“Sad?”

Yuuri’s eyes meet his. Molten brown eyes, steady as the earth, but gentle like sunlight. He seems to come to a decision.

“I only ever wanted to dance alongside you,” he says. “I never meant to take your crown from you.”

Viktor tilts his head. The shadows are creeping in but he’s used to it and Yuuri is so very bright; it’s almost too easy to ignore. It seems unimaginable. Viktor cannot imagine a life where the quest for the crown is not as essential as breathing.

(“Remember your vow.”

He nearly cries, nearly shouts, nearly gives up. But then he remembers the feeling of an audience cheering just for him. He remembers limbs morphed and shaped into being the very image of perfection.

He remembers a vow made when he was too young to know better to a woman with jagged lips and dead eyes.

He remembers the vow made to him.

He raises his wand and dances.)

“Yuuri,” he says. “You  _ are  _ strange.”

Yuuri flushes a deep red and suddenly, the man who had so easily met his eyes is replaced by this shy, shrinking creature.

“I--I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Viktor says. “I don’t doubt you deserve it.”

Yuuri lets out a shaky breath. “If you say so.”

“Perhaps we should start over,” Viktor says. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”

Yuuri shakes his head, swallowing. Viktor finds the motion of his throat fascinating and he focuses on it, lest the shadows eat him up.

“I--That’s not a good idea,” Yuuri says. “This was a mistake. I have to go now.”

“Yuuri please.” There’s a horrible edge of desperation in Viktor’s voice. He’s pleading, all but begging for this man to just stay and give him an ounce of his time and he doesn’t even know  _ why.  _ “Don’t run away from me.”

Yuuri falls still, staring at Viktor, mouth open. His eyes are shining too brightly to be happy.

“I can’t Vitya,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

He flees, leaving Viktor frozen in his wake. He turns a corner and Viktor barely hears the distinct pop of apparition amidst the endless chaos of the muggle world.

  
  


~0~

  
  


Viktor’s taken to following Yuuri around after that. Not too obviously, and he never shows his face because Yuuri’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want to spend any time with Viktor but it’s just… His eyes are drawn to Yuuri already, so what if his body is following now?

Well, he tries, anyway. Circumstances don’t seem to be in his favor.

He knows that Yuuri practices in the largest practice rooms with Lilia, nearly all day. Yuuri had apparently collected as many flower crowns as Viktor had, perhaps even more before they chose him. No one had really paid attention before that. He’d trained as a muggle dancer as a child and had switched to air dancing when he’d found out he was a wizard. He has a history of getting nervous before performances and falling.

A lot. Apparently, Yuuri falls a lot.

But when he gets it right, he’s known for flying higher than any air dancer, even Viktor, spins so tight and fast that you can’t help but be hypnotized by it. He plays with fire as if it were mere silk, moves with water so easily that you’d think his limbs were made of it. One thing’s for sure: people only ever have praises to sing his dancing as long as he finishes them.

No one really knows the circumstances of his crowning, which is not unusual. The veela proclaims the blue crowned and then they dance. They never bother justifying themselves. Their chosen dancers speak for themselves.

There’s a muggle picture of Yuuri in Pichit’s bag, sporting a crown of red roses and golden robes, standing on a stage with the widest smile on his face. Viktor wonders if that had been his first performance. He can’t bring himself to ask, though.

Viktor finds that it is frustratingly hard to find any other information on the other air dancer. He’s like a ghost. Sometimes, when Viktor’s lucky, he would catch a glimpse of Yuuri’s dark blue cloak out of the corner of his eye, hear his light footsteps, but it’s always gone by the time Viktor turns around. It feels as if his brown eyes are constantly on Viktor, watching him, but there’s nothing there whenever Viktor looks.

Perhaps it’s the shadows playing tricks on his mind, pulling him away, pulling him towards his doom.

Lilia wasn’t lying when she said that he had no chance of seeing Yuuri. It seems as if their schedule was designed so that they won’t ever see each other. She’s taken to outright ignoring Viktor whenever he asks about Yuuri, and Yurio it seems, has followed her example. Pichit, who is apparently a close friend of Yuuri’s would have been helpful, but it seems that he’s taken to avoiding Viktor out of practice hours as well.

The dances are coming along beautifully, and the sight of the soaring figures, falling and flying at the grand music’s crescendos would be one for the history books but Viktor is far from satisfied. They have a certain emptiness about them, like they’re missing a key part that would tie everything together, but maybe that’s just Viktor. He’s been feeling that a lot, lately, but no one else seems to notice.

“You know Yuuri well, don’t you?” he asks Yurio after practice. His duet with Altin is one of the most intense pieces in the entire performance, full of explosions and death-defying falls. Otabek is a strong dancer but Yurio is a protegé. He actually has the makings of a great air dancer if he wasn’t so angry all the time.

It’s not quite going as Viktor wants it to, but it’s still early; still fixable. Either Yurio learns to control his anger or he shows Viktor some other thing to work with. Otherwise, their dance will fail.

But no matter. There’s time for those matters yet.

Yurio looks up warily from where he’d been unfolding his cloak. 

"I do,” he says.

“Do you know when I can meet him again?” Viktor asks. “I think I made him uncomfortable the last time we spoke.”

Yurio doesn’t look at him as he wraps himself up. He takes out his wand and absently conducts his belongings to order. Otabek is standing to the side, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for Yurio. They seem to be on good terms, or as good terms as any can have with Yurio.

“Katsudon is uncomfortable with a lot of things,” Yurio says. “You’re hardly the first.”

"Nonetheless,” Viktor says. “I’d like to make amends.”

Yurio looks up, expression hard. “I think that you should take a hint when you’re not wanted, Nikiforov,” he says. He waves his wand and his bag snaps shut, and floats to his waiting hands. “Let’s go Beka.”

He elbows past Viktor towards Otabek. Otabek leans into Yurio to whisper something in his ear but Yurio draws away with a hiss.

There is something in the way they lean into each other that makes Viktor pause. It’s not quite gentleness, more like quietness, indomitable quietness. 

Interesting. Very interesting. Perhaps there’s something there yet.

“If you say so,” he says.

The other dancers just laugh when Viktor asks about Yuuri, as if he’s said something funny. Viktor has no idea what to make of this.

“I think they’re keeping something from me,” Viktor tells the mirror in his room. It’s his day off today, though he doubts anyone would be surprised if he showed up at the theater. He’d try sneaking into Yuuri’s practices again, but he thinks that if Lilia catches sight of him one more time, she’d actually splinch his legs off. “It’s like everyone’s in on a joke and forgot to tell me about it.”

“That my dear,” his reflection says, “is obvious.”

“I’m going to find out what it is,” Viktor says. Even his own reflection seems bored with his antics.

“Good luck with that.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


Viktor finds Chris’ rooms in one of the more expensive inns in Diagon Alley through sheer charm and force of personality, which is how he gets most things. Viktor stays at the Leaky Cauldron because he likes being in the center of things, likes watching people. Chris is the opposite. The other dancers, on the other hand, are spread thin across the country. As long as the place they’re staying at has a decent apparition point or a functioning fireplace, Lilia doesn’t seem to care. The British Ministry of Magic is the one paying for it, at any rate.

The Inkeeper grins a wry, knowing grin at him when he asks, but Viktor’s charming smile remains perfectly in place, and eventually, he is led to Chris’ rooms. Let people think what they think; they’ll only be partially wrong, at any rate.

“What do you know about Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor says, walking in unannounced. Chris looked up from his spot by the fireplace.

“Vitya,” he says. He snaps the novel he was reading shut. “It’s impolite to walk in without knocking. I could have been  _ busy. _ ”

Viktor rolls his eyes.

“Chris, if you hadn’t wanted anyone to walk in here, you would have charmed the doors shut, as you have done many times before.”

“It’s the principle of the matter.”

“Answer the question. What do you know about Yuuri?”

“Why do you keep asking that? It was funny the first few times but now it’s downright odd.”

“Answer the question, Chris.”

Chris frowns. He regards Viktor with an odd look in his eye. Viktor forces himself to calm down. He’s rarely angry and he doesn’t want to be angry. But there is something. Something that everyone seems to know about him and just conveniently forgot to tell him. Something about Yuuri.

“I know many things about Yuuri,” he says slowly. “But nothing you don’t already know.”

“What? What do you mean? I don’t know anything about him.” That’s the point. That’s why he’s here. No one would tell him anything about Yuuri. He thinks he deserves to know about the one who now wears his crown.

“This is a strange game you’re playing, Vitya.”

“I’m not playing a game!”

Chris watches him. He silently waves his wand, drawing another chair. Viktor collapses into it. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this frazzled before. Have some firewhiskey,” Chris says, pouring him a generous amount. He pours one for himself as well, but merely sets his glass own on the table. “You look like you could use it.”

Viktor probably does. He knocks it back without a flinch. The firewhiskey sets his throat on fire but it does somewhat calm him. Chris is right about one thing: he doesn’t think he’s ever been this distressed before.

“I just want to know more about him,” Viktor says. “We just met and I have all these feelings for him I can’t understand and…” It’s almost like he hates Viktor, until the times where he doesn’t. Viktor remembers the way Yuuri had smiled at him so softly when they first met; he thinks he recognizes the look now. It looks a lot like how he feels. “He--He called me Vitya, at one point.”

“You’ve known him for years, Vitya. He’s  _ called  _ you Vitya for years.”

“We just met, Chris.”

Chris studies him, eyes boring into Viktor. His posture is tense, perfectly still. He had taken the glass of firewhiskey in his hand and is absently mixing it. He seems confused more than anything, and perhaps a little bit afraid. 

“What do you remember of the gala banquet in Barcelona a few months ago?” he asks.

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

”Answer the question.”

Viktor shrugs. “Not much. There was music, I think. And some dancing?” If he were completely honest, Viktor doesn’t even  _ remember  _ going to Barcelona a few months ago. He tries but his memory comes up completely blank. He’d been to hundreds of galas over the years. After a while, they all had a tendency to blur together. 

“This isn’t funny.”

“That’s good because I’m not trying to be.”

Chris lets out a curse, leaning back. He very carefully lays the book he was reading on the table. He taps his wand against the book and opens it. Viktor stares at it curiously.

“My photo album,” Chris says with a dismissive wave. “You’ve seen this a hundred times, as well. You don’t remember this?” He points to a photo at the centre of the page with… It was Viktor and Yuuri wearing blue flower crowns, as they glided across the room, eyes only on each other. Blue roses, Viktor thinks. Blue roses are sitting on Yuuri’s locks, along with forget-me-nots and white daisies. It’s a sight Viktor knows better than anything else; the greatest honor an air dancer can receive, woven by the veelas themselves for only the best of their kind. 

He remembers building an imitation of it for Yuuri the first day they… The one that looks exactly as the one Viktor’s wearing in the photograph.

Viktor doesn’t remember smiling as wide as he was in the photograph.

He thinks that he would remember being that happy. He  _ wants  _ to remember being that happy.

“Oh,” he says. “We danced together.”

“Danced to--No, Vitya, you didn’t just dance together there, you…”

His words are beginning to blur out of existence. There is suddenly a fog encircling Viktor’s mind and he finds himself lost. The shadows are creeping in and the whisper of an icy breath in his ear. There’s a glint of gold on Yuuri’s right hand in the photograph as he cradles Viktor in his arms and Viktor almost longs to reach for it, to tangle it with his own fingers and--

There it is, that music in the dance. Their feet are firmly rooted on the ground--a muggle dance. Viktor’s dancing a muggle dance--but there’s a lightness in their eyes. There is a confession in the way Yuuri spins him, a desperate longing in the way they hold each other. His eyes are brown with flecks of gold and there is love in every move he makes. Viktor can almost hear the beating of the music, soft and familiar, enveloping him, taking over his soul.

(‘Forget,’ a woman’s voice whispers and he did.)

“--Vitya! Viktor! Viktor!”

Viktor’s eyes snap open. He stares at Chris. His entire body feels cold, like he’d fallen through ice. He feels a little like passing out.

“Did you say something?” he asks. There is something that’s slipping away, something important, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out what.

“I said,” Chris says, mouth set into a grim line, “that I think we need to speak with Yuuri. Right now.”

Viktor turns to Chris, confused.

“Who is Yuuri?”

  
  


~0~

  
  


They end up flooing to the theatre. Viktor absolutely  _ despises  _ travelling through floo powder.

“My hair is covered in soot,” he complains.

“Hush you,” Christophe says. “It’s more inconspicuous this way.”

“What is inconspicuous about bursting into a huge fireplace surrounded by green fire?”

“It’s quieter than apparating and people hate using it.”

“Why are we even at the theatre, anyway?” Viktor asks. “Who is this Yuuri we’re looking for? And why?”

There’s an odd look in Chris’ eyes that Viktor thinks he’s seen before; confused and very, very afraid.

“You really don’t remember? We were just talking about it!”

“ _ Remember what _ ?”

“This is bad. This is really bad. We’re here because we need to talk to Yuuri and he hates dancing in places with ceilings and he always sneaks into open aired stages when he can’t sleep, and right now, I don’t think he’d be getting much sleep. You were the one who told me this.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

They enter the main theatre. The carpet is a deep, blood red. There’s the shadow of an air dancer, moving across it. Chris holds his wand up but Viktor puts a hand around his arm. He is staring at the small figure, way up in the air, past the walls of the theatre. Dancers don’t normally go up that high. It takes a fair amount of concentration to sustain the levitation spell so high, not to mention the control it takes to keep yourself steady amidst the strong winds.

There is a familiarity in the movements, like it’s something Viktor’s seen--no danced--before. The figures arm reaches out to thin air. Stay with me, it seems to plead, although there’s no one there to answer.

Viktor sorely wishes he could.

“Don’t,” he says. “You’ll disturb him.”

“How is it possible that you--”

“ _ What the fuck are you doing here? _ ”

(It is the night of their wedding when she arrives, bringing ice and death with her. The shadows follow her like a long cloak. The woman’s lips curl. Her beauty seems to fade, despite her features never changing, leaving cold, hard ugliness; dead eyes, and jagged red lips.

“You owe me a boon,” she says.

“I have given you what you want.”

Sharp claws digging into skin and the scream he hears is not his own. On the ground, a crown of blue flowers has fallen.

“Not enough,” she hisses.

“I have nothing left to give,” he says.

“I will get what I am promised.”

Pain, more than he could have imagined, burning through his body.

“Forget,” an icy breath whispers in his ear and he does.)

Hands are suddenly on him, roughly shoving him away.

“You need to get out of here right now.” The voice is familiar and Viktor thinks that he hears an undercurrent of panic in it. He wonders if he should listen to it, since he so rarely does. “You can’t be here.  _ You need to leave. _ ”

Viktor very suddenly cannot breathe. The figure leaps, soaring through the air. He spins, surrounded by blue and purple fire. Spinning spinning spinning spinning--

“ _ Katsudon! Katsu--Yuuri! Yuuri stop! You need to stop right now! Stop! He’s here you need to-- _ ”

The edges of his vision are blurring. There is laughter ringing at the edges of his ears, along with so many tears. A familiar voice curls against his heart, and Viktor wants to reach towards it, to curl into it and let it cradle him into safety. He needs he needs he--

“I’m so sorry, Yuuri,” he murmurs.

He thinks he sees him, stumbling to the ground in huge, clumsy steps that are so unlike him, so unlike the creature who seems to be grace personified, face stained with tears, as the world succumbs to darkness. 

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

 

 

_ tbc... _


	2. Chapter 2

Viktor wakes to darkness and shouting. A lot of shouting. Way too much shouting. Along with a headache enough to bring down an ogre and a troll.

“What was he even doing there? I told you to keep things from getting out of hand, Yura!”

“I didn’t know he’d even be there! It was Giacometti who brought him! I’ve been trying to keep them apart for so long!”

“Obviously you failed.”

“Maybe if you’d just let us know what was happening, this wouldn’t be a problem in the first place!” Viktor knows that voice, though never quite that cold.

“You know we can’t do that. They’d give up on him and…”

Voices. Familiar voices. The room is dimly lit, white balls of light dotting the walls. He’s in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room and Viktor knows those voices but he can’t--He doesn’t--What is--

“Guys,” a quiet voice says. This one he doesn’t know. “I think he’s--”

“We should just pull out. This is going to get him killed.”

“We cannot. Not if we want to break this curse.”

“Who cares about breaking this curse if they’re both dead?”

“Listen Giacommetti, this is going to work. The plan is fullproof and just because…”

Three voices and he  _ knows  _ those voices, he knows he does but Viktor’s mind feels as if it’s stuttered to a stop, the words keep floating in and out of his consciousness, and he can’t understand anything around him and what is even happening where is he what did he--

“Guys!” Firmer this time. A voice that Viktor doesn’t know but somehow curls lazily against his heart as if it’s meant to be there. “I think he’s awake.”

The other voices fall silent. He tries to open his eyes. His entire body feels too heavy, as if weighed down by time spells, slowing down everything around him.

He opens his eyes to find a dark haired man he doesn’t know staring down at him. The man’s face is pale and haggard, cheeks tear-stained. Viktor distantly thinks that this man has the loveliest brown eyes he’s ever seen. He thinks that he can get lost in those for an eternity. 

On the other side of the room are three familiar faces.

“Lilia. Chris.” His voice comes out a tad too raspy. Lilia’s room. It feels like something  _ died  _ in his throat. He’s in Lilia’s room. His eyes scan and yes, there’s her atrocious yellow coat hanging from a coat rack, and a portrait of her gliding across the halls of Beauxbatons tangled in grey silks and trapped in an endless spin.

Everyone’s heads snap towards him. Lilia and a blond boy he can’t quite place. Someone from Koldovstoretz, perhaps. They’re standing on opposite ends of the bedroom. Lilia has her wand out in the way Viktor knows when she’s itching to put a silencing charm on someone. The blond boy just looks like he’s about to start a fist fight.

“Water,” the man next to him says. “Do you want some water?”

Viktor manages a nod.

The man produces a glass. “Aguamenti,” he says, filling it with water before offering it to Viktor. Viktor takes it with nerveless fingers and nearly drops it.

“Let me,” the man says and Viktor doesn’t really have a choice but to nod.

“Thank you,” he says. The man lifts Viktor’s head with one hand and gently brings the glass to Viktor’s lips with the other. Viktor tilts his head back, savoring the familiar weight against his head and sighs, thankful for the cool feeling down his throat.

“Katsuki,” Lilia snaps. “I think you should go. Now.”

"She’s right,” the blond mutters, turning away from Viktor. “Let’s go Katsudon.”

“No,” the dark-haired man--Katsuki--says firmly. “I’m staying.”

The other two stare at him.

“Katsudon--”

“I’m staying.”

“Need I remind you what will happen if you do?”

The dark-haired man turns to Lilia, eyes flashing behind his glasses. “There’s nothing to remind. I’m not dancing, am I? That thing said the curse takes effect when he sees me dance and I’m not doing that here. I am not leaving  _ my husband _ again. We’ll find another way.”

“Katsu--”

“No! No more of this. No more secrets. It  _ doesn’t _ work. We’re finding another way.”

“Husband?” Viktor asks. The man turns back to him, eyes softening. He runs a gentle hand through Viktor’s hair and presses a kiss to his temple. The touch is familiar enough that Viktor can’t help but lean into it.

“Sleep Vitya,” the man says. “You need to rest. I promise I’ll explain everything when you wake up.”

“You’ll be here when I wake up?”

A small, watery smile. “I will. Of course I will. I’m never leaving you again.”

“Alright.” Sleep is already pulling Viktor downward and he wonders if the man had put a sleeping draft into his water. It doesn’t seem far-fetched. “You’re very beautiful, you know?”

The man lets out a wet laugh.

“Rest,” he says. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Don’t be sad,” Viktor murmurs, eyelids already fluttering to a close. “I’ll wait for you.”

He barely hears the man’s soft whisper. “I know Vityenka,” he says. “I know.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


(His dreams are strange. Filled with voices he doesn’t know, and fear he doesn’t think he deserves.

“You are falling,” a woman’s voice says. There is a flash of red lips and sharp teeth. “Your arrogance is your downfall. And no one is there to catch you. You cannot even save yourself.”

“I don’t need to,” he says.

That is, apparently, the wrong thing to say.

The woman snarls, baring her sharp teeth, lips a ghastly red and torn at the edges wide open and pounces.)

  
  


~0~

  
  


Consciousness returns much more slowly the second time; his dreams are not as forgiving. Viktor takes the time to savor the moments between sleep and wakefulness when everything is just silent and still, resting his head against the pillow and closing his eyes. For a moment, it almost seems peaceful. He can ignore the throbbing headache, let the silent room lull him back into sleep’s warm arms. 

There had been a memory there, just on the fringes of his mind, waiting to be remembered. But even as Viktor tries to grasp at it, it slips through his fingers like smoke.

Then, the image of the man’s dark eyes watching him, sad but full of warmth, as well as something that’s almost… Viktor doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, adoration softened by something he can’t quite put a name to. He remembers the feeling of the man’s hand on the back of his neck, warm and strong.

Viktor is very, very good at running away from his problems, but he doesn’t think he should from this one. He doesn’t think he  _ can. _

He opens his eyes and is delighted to find that the man is still sitting beside him. There was something a little too unreal about him, something almost otherworldly to come from anywhere but a dream.

Katsuki, the blond man had called him. It’s a lovely name, Viktor thinks.

“You’re real,” he says. His voice comes out thin and raspy. His throat had been dryer than he thought.

The man jumps out of his seat, staring at Viktor with wide eyes.

“You’re awake! How are you feeling? Do you need anything--” He cuts himself off, fidgeting slightly. “Are you alright?”

“Head hurts,” Viktor mutters. “Is there a healing draught?”

“I don’t--Those don’t work on your kind of headache. You can try this?” He reaches into his pocket and hands Viktor a… white thing in silver wrappings. 

“What is that?”

“Aspirin,” Katsuki says. “It’s muggle medicine. It might help with the headache. I don’t think anyone’s bothered trying this on you, yet.”

Viktor tilts his head curiously. He has no idea how muggle medicine can possibly help with his problems. Muggles have proven themselves to be particularly brilliant creatures, just not, Viktor thinks, when it comes to the healing arts. The sentiment must show on his face because a soft smile grazes Katsuki’s face.

“You’d be surprised,” he says. “Muggles are very good at avoiding headaches.”

“I’d take your word for it.” Katsuki hands him the white pill free from the silver wrappings and helps Viktor drink it with a gulp of water. Afterwards, he sits back down. Collapses might be the better word, though. Like a puppet giving up on holding onto the last remnants of its strings.

Viktor swallows the pill. It leaves a bitter taste in his throat.

“What happened?” he asks. “Earlier you said something about a curse?”

The man sighs, deep and heavy. It seems that he’s having trouble meeting Viktor’s eyes, staring at his fidgeting hands instead. Viktor has to resist the very real urge to take those hands in his and run his thumb across Katsuki’s palm.

It’s a strange feeling, this… desire. Especially for a man he doesn’t know. Viktor doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“You remember that?” Katsuki asks. Viktor nods.

“I wish you didn’t.”

“ _ Tell me. _ What does it mean?”

“It was a bad idea. It was--Are you sure you want to hear this? It could be dangerous. It’s probably too dangerous.”

“I think I should be the judge of that,” Viktor says.

A breath. “That--That sounds a lot like you,” he says. “Alright. Do you remember the accident you got into months ago?”

“The one with the curse.” Viktor frowns. “A stray memory curse, I think. I don’t really remember much from it. The healers said it was normal.” Viktor hadn’t questioned it much. Memories are tricky things and they are definitely not his strong suit.

“It was. It wasn’t a memory curse, though. Not really. It was from a veela, that’s why no one has any idea how to break it. Veela have powerful magic.”

“I didn’t know veelas cursed people.” They were the more ‘eating men’s hearts’ types. Curses are… too subtle for their tastes. Too human.

“Veelas are jealous creatures. And you made one of them  _ very  _ jealous. I don’t really know the specifics.”

(Jealousy. Correct but not quite.

It is a debt owed, perfection unfinished. It is arrogance and recklessness and love. So much love.

Blood red lips, torn at the edges. The feeling of claws piercing his skull and blood pouring from his temple.

A scream that was not his. Begging. Crying.

A crown of blue flowers falling to the floor.)

“She’s not a veela,” Viktor says. “She just likes pretending she is.”

An abomination, Viktor thinks. Born with a veela’s grace but not their beauty. With their anger but none of their charm. He doesn’t know how she came to be what she is, what happened to her dead eyes and jagged lips, but he knows that it’s turned her bitter. The veelas accept nothing less than perfection and she is anything but.

(A bargain Viktor hadn’t known he had made. Not knowing how much he lost.)

Viktor hums and doesn’t answer. Katsuki’s eyebrows furrow but he doesn’t say anything. Viktor’s eyes flicker to the shadows of the room. Just shadows, not anything more. Shadows that have followed him; shadows he had bargained his dreams with. He wanted to be the greatest and he had told her he would offer everything to her.

It was only a matter of time before it caught up with him. He knows that beauty fades but he had wanted to savor it until it lasted. It stopped mattering at some point. The dreams he once had. There was only the air, only the feeling of flying so high that everyone around thought he’d never fall.

There was only the fall. The constant uncertainty that comes with leaping through the air with only your wand and your soul.

Dreams are for children who make promises on cold summer nights. They’re the gentle clouds around you, when you still think they can cushion your fall.

And like all childish dreams, he apparently did not think it through very well.

“What was the curse?”

“You forget me.” The smile on Katsuki’s face doesn’t look much like a smile, more like the shape a mouth makes when it’s about to open in a cry. “Every time you see me dance, you forget me and it takes a little out of you each time.”

(Begging. The sound of begging fills his ears.

Someone else begged as he died.)

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re dying, Vitya. She said you had nine chances, and on the tenth it’s over. We’re already on our seventh time. There’s not much time left.”

“I--I don’t--Who are  _ you _ ?”

The man’s hand wander down to Viktor’s hand, his thumb running gentle circles over his palm. He doesn’t even seem to notice he’s doing it, too busy not looking at Viktor.

(Smooth strands of hair, slipping against his fingertips. The familiar weight of the blue crown on his hands as he finally passes it on to someone more worthy.

A smile, shy and tentative.

A breath. The first one taken in a century.)

“My name’s Yuuri,” he says. “Yuuri Katsuki.”

“No. I mean  _ who are you _ ?”

A soft smile, full of hurt and forgiveness at the same time. Viktor doesn’t really know what there is to forgive, but he’s almost sure he doesn’t deserve it. He rarely does.

“Don’t you remember, Vitya? You told me you did.”

(Lips pressing against his. Sweet and salty, smelling of the sea.)

“You called me husband,” Viktor says. “Earlier.”

“I did,” Yuuri Katsuki says. Viktor’s heart feels as if it’s about to beat out of his chest. He senses her, just out of his line of sight, watching, mocking. This is what she took from him.

“Oh,” he says.

Yuuri Katsuki’s grip tightens around his hand. Viktor closes his eyes and he almost convinces himself that he knows it; knows the valleys and mountains and cliffs written on this man’s palm.  _ His husband’s  _ palm.

He doesn’t. He is holding onto a stranger’s hand and hoping for salvation.

“We’ll get through this,” he says firmly.

“You don’t know that,” Viktor says.

“Yes I do.”

Viktor opens his mouth, probably to argue more, but finds that nothing comes out. There’s an odd tightness in his chest. There’s so much faith there, so much resolve, sounding almost unbreakable and Viktor can almost pretend that he doesn’t hear the edge of desperation in it. Yuuri Katsuki is on the edge of the precipice, ready to throw everything away for something Viktor cannot give. 

There is a Viktor who existed once and this beautiful, ethereal creature loves him. Viktor is not him. Viktor  _ forgot  _ how to be that person, but the man’s love doesn’t seem to have gone away. Viktor doesn’t deserve that kind of devotion.

It is his fault, he knows it. It always is.

He feels weak and shaky, his body going cold all over. The headache hasn’t disappeared, only increased tenfold and there are things flashing through his mind that he does not know, cannot recognize. His breath is coming out in pants. The shadows are creeping in and there is a whisper of icy breaths encasing his heart. He pulls his hand away and pretends not to notice the way Yuuri Katsuki flinches.

“I--I think I need to be alone right now,” Viktor says. “To think about this.”

“Of course,” Yuuri Katsuki says. He rises to leave. His breathing is shaky and shuddering. “You know how to call for--”

“I’ll call,” Viktor says. Yuuri Katsuki nods.

"I’ll just--I’ll just leave now. I hope your headache is better.” 

“It’s not.”

Yuuri Katsuki jerks his head. 

“Wait,” Viktor says. “My crown. Whatever happened to it?”

Yuuri Katsuki’s eyes are like broken glass. Viktor feels his entire body go cold. He knows what it means without having to ask.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri Katsuki says. He steps out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. There’s none of the usual grace Viktor had seen from him earlier. It occurs to Viktor that Yuuri Katsuki may have been as intent on running away as Viktor had been to closing himself off.

There are things people say they want, and the things that people actually want, and they’re rarely the same thing. Viktor knows that better than anyone.

Viktor takes in a shuddering breath and tries to center himself. Okay then. Okay.

He doesn’t quite know what’s happening yet, but he already knows what he needs to do. He needs to get out, needs to find out what’s going on, find a way to get out of it--needs to find his cown-- _ He needs to dance-- _

“I know Yuuri wants to leave you alone but I’m not going to do that.”

Viktor’s head snaps towards the door where Chris is standing, arms crossed over his chest. It makes his vision spin, vomit rising up his throat.

“What are you doing here?” he rasps out.

Chris’ expression is grim. It’s such a rare expression on his face that it’s almost unfamiliar; Viktor knows enough to be wary. “We need to talk.”

“Funny how I think people are going to be saying that a lot to me soon.”

“This really isn’t funny.”

“I think if anyone has the right to joke about it, it’s me.”

Chris sighs. He sits on the wooden chair that Yuuri Katsuki vacated. He really is quite beautiful, Viktor thinks idly. Easy and languid even when he isn’t trying; even when he is probably exhausted and worried out of his mind. It’s hard to take your eyes off him.

It’s hard to think right now. Harder to breathe.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

Viktor’s eyebrows perk up. “Seriously?”

“What did you think I was going to ask? You know just as much as I do, if not less.”

“I’m fine,” Viktor says, because that was what you said when people asked that question. Chris glares at him, telling Viktor exactly what he thought of that non-answer. 

I feel like my entire world’s crashed all around me and I’m currently floating wandless through the air, feels a bit too dramatic, even for Viktor’s standards. Accurate, yes, but overdramatic.

I’ve lost the one thing I gave my soul to and the shadows are coming for payment, but Chris doesn’t know about that. No one does, not even Yakov or Lilia. It’s a secret Viktor has guarded better than anything.

“I’m… not fine,” Viktor admits. “It’s hard to wrap my head around everything. And my head hurts like it’s been hit with a dozen bludgers.”

Chris sighs again. “That’s fair,” he says. “So what are you planning to do about it?”

Viktor freezes. “What makes you think I’m going to do anything apart from sleep it off?”

“You always do something.”

“Not this time,” Viktor says. “The three of them seem to know exactly what they’re doing, don’t they?” The last part comes out too bitterly and he knows that Chris notices. 

“Vitya.” Chris hesitates. “They told me about the curse. Veela magic is complicated, but it can be overcome so don’t… Don’t lose faith just yet.”

“She’s not a veela,” he says again.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s not a veela,” Viktor says. “She wants to be but she’s not.”

“Vitya,” Chris says, “how can you possibly know this?”

Shadows following him since he was a child. A broken vow. The feeling of nothing under his feet.

“Don’t ask,” he says. “Just don’t.”

A flicker of a smirk, of laughter. Viktor trapped in a game he never wanted to play. He thinks he’s going crazy.

Chris’ face is unreadable. It’s a rare expression on him. “Promise you’re not going to do anything stupid.”

“Me?”

Chris sighs, running a hand through his hair. “That’s what I thought,” he says. “But it was worth a shot. Now, we are going to pretend nothing is wrong and I’m going to talk about what’s going on with the dances because I have no idea how this memory loss is supposed to work but I assume you’re going to want to get back to work as soon as you’re able to stand.”

“I think I remember some of it,” Viktor says. “But there are holes. Did you bring my notes?”

Chris reaches out in his satchel and produces a large stack of parchment. A very large stack. When Viktor gives him a disbelieving look, he just shrugs and says,

“It’s a really long production.” 

Viktor examines the stack, the loops of letters written in his hand, drawings of poses, idle thoughts. “I don’t remember writing any of this,” he says. It’s suddenly gotten very hard to breathe again and there are pins and needles lurking behind his eyes and Viktor remembers very vividly that he’s always  _ despised  _ the idea of memory spells.

He manages to hold onto so little as it is. Everything seems to slip away from his fingertips so easily, like… Almost like he’s a ghost, like he’s not made of anything and there’s nothing of him that can touch let alone hold onto something and--

Calm. Viktor needs to be calm.

He takes a deep breath. Then another. Then another. It does absolutely nothing to calm him. He tries to focus on keeping his breathing steady and even, in and out, in and out, how much did he lose? Months of memories of that had made him into someone who would have written this and crafted a dance out of what he had known, a man who had loved and lived and--

“Vitya.”

Viktor’s head snaps up to face Chris who had placed a hand on Viktor’s arm.

“Do you trust him?” Viktor demands. “Yuuri?”

"He loves you very much,” Chris says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I trust him Viktor,” Chris says. “He’s never wanted anything but the best for you. If there’s anyone who can figure out a way to fix you, it’s him.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask what they would do if he doesn’t want to be fixed. He doesn’t want to know what they would say if he told them that he’s terrified of the man they’ve come to know, the idea that there is a version of him who fell in love and gotten married and has created all these things. Viktor doesn’t like being in anyone’s shadow, not even his own.

“Do you want to start with the group dances or the pair dances?” Chris asks, snapping him out of his musings.

In and out. One breath after another. “Group,” he says. Chris’ expression is unreadable but he nods so that’s alright. And for a few hours, it’s as if there’s nothing wrong, just him and Chris talking shop, with Chris questioning Viktor’s ambition and Viktor questioning Chris’ artistic choices. They’ve known each other for decades, since they were children still in school; always crossing paths in productions and competitions because if there was one thing Europe adored doing, it was trying to outdo each other in everything. Long enough to know that there are things best left unsaid, and things that they should probably talk about but would rather not.

It’s comforting, knowing there’s someone who knows you well enough to back off of a much needed conversation. It helps. Makes his breathing a little easier, the headaches easier to ignore.

Eventually, Chris has to leave for rehearsals. He’d given Viktor a look that firmly says, ‘Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.’

Viktor had smiled and promptly planned to do something that constituted something stupid. Because another quality of a long friendship is ignoring the other person’s sound advice in favor of your own idiotic ones. Viktor is an expert at this and Chris is well aware of this fact.

It takes Viktor an hour to figure out what to actually do, half of it is spent just finding the strength to stand. He’s taken to scouring every inch of the room Lilia put him in (and it is Lilia’s room. he’d recognize that hideous portrait of a tangle of silks). He doesn’t find much, just information on the performance that’s apparently just a month away. 

He didn’t really have a plan in mind apart from he really needed to get away from that place. Lilia and her familiar walls lined with her familiar pictures and constant disapproval and it wasn’t that Viktor hadn’t thrived under it, but it was too much. It was all of it too much. Loneliness has a way of making all his anxieties bounce around his head until they’re a thundering army right behind his eyes.

Almost unsurprisingly, he ends up in the theatre. Apparently, no matter what country he’s in, he’d still go back to the one place that’s captured his attention and stolen him away ever since he learned how to stand.

It’s empty, thankfully. Viktor had no idea what time it actually was, but it must be pretty late if the theatre is empty. It’s usually so full of life, especially this close to opening night. There would be too many deadlines that seem impossible to meet, set pieces to make, choreography to rehearse.

Yuuri was an air dancer for the show, the lead based from Lilia’s documents and Chris’ stories. Blue crowned;the one who had taken the tile from Viktor. Viktor was the assistant choreographer. Viktor isn’t allowed to see Yuuri dance.

He remembers a fierce protectiveness in the eyes of everyone in the room when he woke up. The way there had been an undercurrent of a long fight that Viktor wasn’t privy to. They’d kept this up for months and Viktor’s life was on the line and--

(don’t you remember, lover? you told me you did.)

He wonders why he’s still here.

His feet automatically take him to the center of the stage. All magical theatres are essentially the same, no matter what country he’s in. Their kind had never really been on the creative side.  Shaped like a circle, to help with the sounding and lights; there’s also some symbolic meaning there that Viktor never really bought into. Symbols and images and ideas are what you made of them; they of all people should know better than that.

He closes his eyes, arms raised above his head, wand at the ready. It’s practically second nature at this point. A lot has changed and Viktor might be dying and married to someone he doesn’t remember and the world is madder than he’s used to but dance is dance and it is both eternally frustrating and beautiful. There are a lot of things he doesn’t know and it feels like he’s drifting in an ocean and lost and alone, about to be overcome by something he can’t possibly control. 

Throughout his life, there’s been only one constant; he’s loved it and he’s hated it and now he thinks he’s really really tired of it, but that doesn’t matter because it’s always just  _ there. _

Viktor takes a deep breath and murmurs the words he knows better than his own name.

He flies.

(There was a man. He-- He thinks he may have wanted to do something when he was a child but he’s forgotten what that was. He’s forgotten a lot of things recently.

There is the air under his feet and he feels steadiest there. He wonders what that says about him.

There is magic at his fingertips but there has never been anything magical about it. There has always been magic at his fingertips. He remembers growing up in a castle because his parents couldn’t be bothered having him over for the holidays, especially since he’s a prodigy, the kind that needs all the practice he can get. He remembers walking barefoot at night, feet scraping across the cold stone floor.

He’s forgotten why he even snuck out in the first place. Perhaps to find something new in his world of constant lessons and magic and dancing. Something surprising.

At some point, he thinks he may have forgotten how to be surprised.

He remembers the constant weight of the flowers cradled against his hair to be a burden he is slowly buckling under.

There is a shiver of  _ something  _ in his heart, of molten brown eyes and music and a constant state of genuine surprise. There is a market filled with things that he doesn’t know about which are new and surprising and different and that’s where they meet and it was beautiful and the man almost reaches out and…

And.

A whisper. A hand reaching out and lips cradling his. Two bodies entwined around each other so tight they looked like one.

“Do not try to remember,” a voice whispers, cold as death. “There is nothing left for you back there.”

Then, there’s an explosion of pain and blood and screams and the world suddenly disappears from under his feet and--)

He falls.

He doesn’t realize it at first because it feels… It doesn’t feel wrong and it’s almost alright and how could he…

But then, instinct kicks in and half the art of learning how to dance is learning how to fall and…

Viktor knows better than anyone when there’s no way to save a fall. Knows the sickening crack of a body hitting stone floors because they were a few milliseconds too late to save themselves. Time passes by so quickly for them; a few seconds off beat and you realize you’re dead, a few years pass and you realize that you’ve never been alive in the first place. 

There is a voice shouting in the distance, a furious storm of emotions. Viktor closes his eyes and lets himself succumb to the inevitable.

  
  


~0~

  
  


He opens them to the blond man whose fists are clenched, towering over him like an avenging angel.

“You. Are. An. Idiot.”

Viktor blinks. He’s sitting on the floor, the fur of the carpet, soft under his clenched hands. His body is tense, ready for a fight.

“I didn’t fall,” he says.

“You almost did.”

‘But I didn’t.” Viktor thinks he should be getting up now, but his knees are weak and shaky. His body feels cold all over, shivering. Trembling. Broken.

“ _ What were you doing _ ?” The blond is kneeling right in front of him, way too close, face contorted with anger. Viktor almost finds it hard to breathe if he had the strength to feel anything right now.

“Stop shouting at me,” he says wearily. “I don’t even know your name.”

He’s seen the blond before, definitely in Koldovstoretz, but not much after that. What he remembers are tied to patches of memories just aren’t  _ there _ , along with flashes of annoyance and cynicism and resigned fondness.

“Yuri Plisetsky,” he says, voice like ice. “Now tell me what you were doing.”

“I wanted to dance. Surely, I can still do that?”

Strong hands pull him roughly to his feet. Viktor’s knees are still too weak to hold him up. He knows he leans too heavily on Yuri--no that’s too confusing. Yura, perhaps--but Yura doesn’t say anything. Probably because he was too busy being furious.

“You  _ fell _ ,” Yura says.

“I did.”

“You never fall.”

“Everyone falls.”

“Not  _ you. _ ”

“Everyone falls,” Viktor snaps. “Can we leave now or are there any more world shattering revelations for me? Maybe I have a daughter now or a Death Eater for a cousin, I don’t know maybe--”

“You’re angry,” Yura says blankly.

“Of course I’m angry!” Viktor yells. “I’m not just angry. I’m furious! just found out that I lost years of memories. I wake up and you tell me I’m married and…”

He can’t dance. There was something fundamentally different, something buried deep in his bones he couldn’t seem to find anymore. The thing that let him dance and caught enough of people’s attention for them to stay for more than just a moment. That is what she took from him and it’s almost brilliant in its cruelty. Forced him to become this thing who knew only one thing then ripped away the one thing that allowed him to do it.

The stories he wants to tell are gone, as if a piece of himself has been chipped away.

Flashes of red and screams with each twitch of his fingers and it hurts. It physically hurts to hold onto them.

He wakes up in a world where he doesn’t dance, where the last thing he’s been clinging to has been ripped away. A world where a man loves him but he doesn’t know how to love him back.

He had fallen.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he says. “I’m not the man you all love.”

“ _ Durak, _ ” Yura hisses. “ _ Idiot. _ We did not go through all this trouble just so you can throw it away. We will find a way to get your memories back.”

That, Viktor thinks, is fundamentally missing the point.

“I’m not him,” he says.

Yura looks as if him as if he’s trying to bite back several curses before settling on rolling his eyes. “You’re Viktor Nikiforov, aren’t you?”

“Not  _ him.  _ I don’t know how to be that person you all know and maybe I can’t take how you look at me. I’m not--”

Yura growls, his grip on Viktor’s arm tightening. “I repeat: You. Are. An. Idiot. An overdramatic idiot.” He yanks on Viktor’s arm. “Come on.”

“I don’t know what you want from me!” 

“We want you to stop being a fucking idiot,” Yura says. “Asshole. Just get back and don’t do anything stupid for a while, while we clean this mess up.”

He tugs on Viktor’s arm and Viktor allows himself to be dragged along. 

“You don’t get to do this again,” Yura says furiously. “We’re trying to protect you and you don’t get to throw that away.”

“I didn’t ask you for any of that.”

“You didn’t have to--Look here, I know you have issues but try not to be an idiot, alright?”

“Everyone keeps telling me that.”

“Because you keep being an idiot.”

“I just…”

“It’ll be fine,” Yura says, a grim set to his mouth.

Viktor is getting very tired of people telling him that.  
  


 

~0~

  
  


Viktor finds that he sees a lot of Yura after that, him and Altin since the two of them seem inseparable. Too much, in his opinion. It should make sense since Viktor is still choreographing their pairs dance, but they tag along with the group dances as well; standing at the back and not saying anything. Their very presence is beginning to set Viktor’s teeth on edge.

The other air dancers don’t seem to find this strange. Viktor doesn’t know if it’s because they know or if this is just a regular thing that happened in his life before and he doesn’t think he’ll ever know because no one seems to want to tell him anything.

It’s almost laughable how easy Viktor learns to hate him. The boy is young and he is angry. But more importantly, he moves with the grace of someone who knows he’s the best, head tilted high, arms loose and languid, steps light but sure. Viktor knows those kinds of people all too well. People who dance and play with fire because they can and because it’s beautiful, ignoring how much it burns.

Who eventually fall, ashen and smoking; scarred and of no use to anyone.

Yurio’s dancing is something that plays too closely with the things Viktor would rather forget. 

“I’m here to keep an eye on you,” Yurio tells him when he asks him to leave. To stop you from doing anything stupid.” 

“I never do anything stupid,” Viktor says.

Yura gives him a look, arms crossed over his chest. Viktor looks away.

“I just want you to stop following me around like an overgrown puppy,” he snaps.

“You think I want to be following an old man like you?” Yura steps forward but Altin places a hand on his shoulder. “But you seem to have developed a talent for trying to get yourself killed when left alone, so you’re stuck with me.”

“What about Yuuri?” Viktor demands. “If you’re all so concerned about me, why haven’t I seen him?”

He hasn’t caught even a glimpse of Yuuri ever since that day in the bedroom days before. He’d wanted to ask Chris about it the first few days, but there was something about the pitying look the man was giving him that made Viktor want to scream.

He is getting the distinct impression that he’s being manipulated and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Katsuki is busy,” Yura says.

“Is he?”

Yura’s expression tightens.

“He is. He can’t seem to remember how to fly.”

They’re at an impasse and Viktor somehow feels angrier than he should be. It’s the frustrations of being kept in the dark, being constantly dismissed and neglected boiling over. It makes him feel like a child begging for a parent’s attention.

It’s the terror of hiding from the shadows he can’t tell anyone about, the madness creeping in of being terrified of the corner of his eye.

Viktor grits his teeth. He’s supposed to be better than this. He’s taught himself better than this. Somehow, Yura in all his rage and youth and brashness has undone everything Viktor’s sought to achieve. Everything he has achieved.

Yura doesn’t know when to back down. Viktor sees too much of himself in him.

Behind him, there’s a quiet cough. Altin’s eyes are flickering between the two of them, his shoulders tense. Viktor almost feels bad for him. It can’t have been nice to be caught in the middle of two colliding hurricanes.

“We should start rehearsals, don’t you think?” Altin says, voice betraying nothing.

Yura’s head whips towards him and Altin is met with the full force of the younger man’s glare. Altin, to his eternal credit, doesn’t waver. It seems that if there’s anyone who can whether the storm that is Yuri Plisetsky, it’s Otabek Altin.

“Let’s get started,” Viktor says. He takes a deep breath and slowly unclenches his fists.

(After the War, stories like these were common. War has a way of tearing relationships apart, leaving them broken and bleeding, but it also had ways of weaving some together, threads aligning one by one until there was nothing that could break them.

It’s hard to trust people with your life; even harder to trust them with your death.

Imagine this: the world is crumbling underneath your feet. There is one person next to you, their hand reaching out. Around you, everyone is doing their best to hurt everyone else.

Think of the one person who you know best, who knows you best. Think of the ground that is barely holding you up and a sky lit up in green fire.

Think of that person, holding out their hand. Do you trust them to save your life? More importantly, do you trust them to die with you?

Think of the end of the world and your one chance at salvation standing right next to you, reaching out.

Think: do you take it?

Do you let yourself be saved?)

The dance isn’t working.

“You have to fall into his arms, Yura. Literally fall.”

“You want me to fall ten feet in the air?”

Viktor tilts his head curiously. “Can’t you do it?”

Yura growls. Altin is watching the exchange warily. Viktor doesn’t know much about him. He’s a good dancer and seems to spend a good deal of his time with Yura. He’s barely said a word to Viktor in all their time together and he wonders if they knew each other well from before Viktor lost his memories, if he’s also looking for the man Viktor could have been. 

Well, if he is, he never said anything about it, just remained as inscrutable as ever. As far as Viktor cares, he has a good head on his shoulders and is the only person Yura truly listens to, which is the most important thing. It’s nice not to be treated as if he was about to fall apart any moment.

“I can do it,” Yura says fiercely.

“Then do it.”

Yura glares at him, then turns to his partner.

“You better catch me,” he says. 

“I always do,” Altin says. Yura seems to find this answer adequate. He nods, taps himself with his wand and soars into the air, Altin close after him. Viktor taps the music player and the sweet notes of piano and the lyre echo across the air. Sweet but sad, the way young love is. Tentative, unsure, full of side glances, and careful touches. Never lingering. They dance around each other, circling, constantly circling, closer and closer until something pulls them apart. Yura falls, Otabek catches him. He falls further and further and around them, chaos. The music turns dark.

(There were once two students living in a war. 

It’s hard for them to understand, at first. It’s much too easy to get used to the constant listing of who died when and what fell apart where in the Daily Prophet. They blur together after a while. Names are names, lines of ink on a page, spilling into each other and tangling into an incoherent heap. The first ten, they remember, the first twenty, some slip away.

The first hundred and it stops meaning anything.

It’s harder to get used to the way Hogwarts seems to shed students like leaves from a tree in winter. A few disappeared before Hogwarts even fell. Most disappeared by the day afterwards, there one day and gone the next. The fact that no one talks about it, that their eyes seem to flicker over the empty seats as if they’re not even there makes it easier. The halls become cold. Lifeless.

There is no life in world without love, only survival.

As long as it’s not them, they’ll whisper to each other, they’ll be fine. They’ll keep each other safe. A thousand names flicker out of existence each day and they promise that it will never be theirs.

They will live through this. That’s all that matters for now.)

There would be dancers around them in this part, moving around them, a hurricane of pain and death and despair and so much more. The world they’re living is not a kind one. They’re not kind, either. They are just better at hiding it with their love.

Pain makes people do strange things.

It’s a classic story, one that’s been told a thousand times over, especially in the one they’re telling. It should have been beautiful. It’s always a tragedy because tragedy has a certain beauty that leaves you breathless and hurting at the same time. All those children who fell, who never even got their chance.

It’s not their story to tell. Even from the distance, Viktor can see that Yura hates it and Otabek is very nearly mechanical if he wasn’t so very good at what he’s doing. Neither of them are the kind of people who will let themselves fall that far. Yura would never want anyone to cry for him and he would never let himself cry for someone the way he needs to cry to dance.

“Stop,” he calls out. “Stop. It’s horrible. Come here, the both of you.”

They stop abruptly and Viktor finds something there. In the sharpness of Yura’s movement as he straightens in the air, annoyance overtaking his features. For a moment, a single second nothing more, he stands straight-backed, shoulders back, head held high. Otabek hovers below him, circling him, as if he wasn’t noticing that he was doing it. They’re holding each other’s hand.

(“Look how far you’ve fallen,” the woman’s voice is constant in his ears, the curse waiting to fall.

But perhaps there is a difference between falling and knowing that you will be caught.

Perhaps not every sad story is a tragedy and there can still room for something for.

Perhaps it’s not a matter of letting yourself be saved but just being saved.)

It doesn’t make sense to tell a story you don’t understand; Viktor knows that now.

“Come here,” Viktor says. “I have an idea. Lilia’s going to hate it. It’s going to be beautiful.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


“You think to defy me.”

Viktor whirls around. The face in his dreams, the face he’s known his entire life, the one he’d sworn his life to, beautiful and unearthly with a voice colder than ice and death. She towers over Viktor, red lips stretched over pale skin. There is something about her that is not quite human, a ferocity trapped in her long, sharp nails that will kill without thought. On her pale hair is a crown of blue flowers.

“You don’t deserve those,” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. Viktor can’t seem to control himself. His entire body has gone cold, the air around him seeming to have disappeared. “You’re lying to yourself.”

Red lips open to reveal a row of sharp teeth, open in a snarl. 

“You’ve said that before. Look where you are now.”

“You’re the woman in my dreams. You’re the one who made me forget.”

“You know why.”

Viktor closes his eyes. He does. There can be only one reason.

“I gave you what you wanted. I never said I’d keep it.”

“And now you’re trying to outwit me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she hisses. “You found him and turned him into your own dancer, gave him your crown.”

“I don’t remember  _ any  _ of that.”

“You did this to yourself.”

“ _ Who are you _ ?” Viktor doesn’t know where he finds the recklessness, but he steps closer until the two of them are only a breath apart. He is angrier than he’s ever been in his entire life. He imagines how easy it would be to draw his wand, to push her; how easy it would be for a curse to fall on his lips that would take as much from her as she has taken from him. “ _ What do you want from me _ ?”

She remains unfazed, staring at him in contempt. She is not human, she does not know anger; only knows getting what she wants. The primal hunt of a predator to its prey. She may play for a while, but she only has one goal in mind.

(A not-quite girl, too powerful for her own good, forsaken by her kind. Not quite beautiful enough, not quite perfect enough.

“Prove yourself,” they said and she tried.

By God, she tried.)

“You will fail in your defiance,” she says. “You will pay for your arrogance.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


(Once upon a time, there were two lovers who loved each other more than the world. They were as beautiful as they were great and their love was known throughout the land. However, the world did not know how to love them. There are those who look at their greatness and see something that can be destroyed.

There are those who only want to tear apart all that is beautiful.

The story goes that they were in love.

The story goes that one day, one of them disappeared and they were torn apart. He comes back and he is different; he comes back and he is missing pieces of himself.

But this is not the fairy tale that you thought it would be. The story is entirely in your hands.

Now tell me, how does the story go after that?

Tell me, does love really conquer all?)

  
  


~0~

  
  


Viktor wanders the streets as if in a dream. He keeps seeing flashes of things he doesn’t know: the smell of the sea, arms spread in flight in a sky he’s never seen, smiles he never made, hands that are not his. His entire body still feels cold and weak. It’s through sheer muscle memory that he manages to return to the Leaky Cauldron and he is just about conscious enough to notice a familiar dark head waiting for him.

Yuuri Katsuki looks distinctly uncomfortable to be there. His arms are crossed over his chest, shoulders hunched, like he’s trying to disappear. It’s an odd quirk for an air dancer to have; it’s hard to believe that this is the kind of man who can catch an entire theatre’s attention.

Then again, no matter what he does or how hard he tries, Viktor’s eyes can’t seem to stray away from him. 

“You’re here,” Viktor says blankly. He stops in front of Yuuri and can’t help but stare. Viktor simultaneously feels as if he’s going to pass out or throw himself at Yuuri’s arm. He swallows past the lump in his throat and tries to plaster a smile on his face. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Yuuri’s mouth presses into a thin line. Despite his discomfort, his eyes are steady when they meet Viktor’s.

“Lilia doesn’t approve,” he says. “She thinks I’m being an idiot and taking too many risks. Yurio agrees with her.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think,” Yuuri says, “that we need to talk.” 

Viktor smiles tightly. 

The two of them end up in Viktor’s rooms. Yuuri sits at the edge of his chair, fingers fidgeting on his lap. There is something worn and haggard in the set of his shoulders, exhaustion in the lines around his eyes. Viktor stands at the opposite side of the room, arms crossed over his chest. He stands because he’s pretty sure he’s going to pass out otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri begins but Viktor shakes his head. He doesn’t really have the patience or strength for apologies right now.

“Don’t,” he says. “Just don’t. I don’t care. Just tell me what I need to do because I am not just going to sit here and wait for other people to decide my life.”

Yuuri frowns. “Are you alright? You’re very pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“Vi--”

“I said I’m fine. Now say what you’ve come to say.”

Yuuri’s eyes are haunted as he tells Viktor that, “There is actually a way to break the curse.”

“What? Then why haven’t you been doing that?”

“I--I don’t think you’ll like it very much.”

“Do I look like I care about that right now?”

“It’s--It’s ridiculous. A long shot and--”

“Yuuri.”

Yuuri lets out a shaky breath. His hands have curled into fists on his lap. “After she cursed you, she turned to me and said, ‘The curse can be broken by true love’s kiss.’ She laughed and left after that.”

There’s a ringing silence in the room. Viktor waits for the other shoe to drop, for Yuuri to burst out laughing and tell him the truth. It doesn’t happen. He remembers the stories his mother use to tell him, when he barely reached her waist, about princes and maidens and being saved by love when nothing else could; she loved muggle stories almost as much as he did. Strange how he found muggle fairytales more magical than wizarding ones.

Those things don’t happen. Not to Viktor, anyway. There are souls sold in the night, but he’s not one who can be saved with love. That is not how someone like him is supposed to go.

There’s a bitter twist to Yuuri’s mouth as Viktor gapes, open-mouthed.

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” he says. “It’s the kind of thing that happens in--”

“Stories,” Yuuri says. “But this isn’t a story, Vitya. It’s real.” There is something sad, almost bitter in the way he twists his mouth. 

“Don’t call me that,” Viktor snaps and pretends he doesn’t see the way Yuuri very carefully hides his flinch. There is something deeply unsettling about someone he hardly knows being so familiar with him. And something more unsettling about how it’s the most familiar thing in the world. “So I just have to kiss you? It can’t possibly that easy.”

“True love’s kiss,” Yuuri says again. “Can you honestly say that you love me right now?”

He thinks of how the woman taunted him, told him that she is taking the one thing he has managed to care for.

He thinks of the way he looks at Yuuri, the way his eyes never stray from his. That inexplicable thing that continues to draw him to the other man, even as he desperately tries to pull away. “I--I want to.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

What do you want from me, Viktor wants to ask, to scream, to beg, but he doesn’t think he wants to hear the answer. Doesn’t want to see the eyes of another person he’s failed.

“So you’re here to tell me we should fall in love again?”

Yuuri’s lips press into a thin line. His knuckles are bone-white. “This isn’t a story,” he says again. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. We’ve done it once before, right? That’s what everyone tells me.” And if the words come out a little too cynical, a tad too sardonic, well, Viktor’s been playing with bitter spite since he was a child.

Yuuri sucks in a sharp breath as if Viktor hit him with a stunning spell. His body is tense and coiled, ready to bolt at any moment.

“The story goes,” he begins shakily, “or at least the one you tell is that you fell in love with how I danced. Some people say it’s the best thing you love about me.”

Dance. The one constant in his fickle life; the one thing that he continues to bleed and break for, even as it drains every bit of him left. Viktor takes it in. Of course. It would make sense that everything in his life, even love, would be inexplicably tied to something that he thinks he’s growing to hate.

The thing that is probably going to kill him.

“Do you believe that?” he asks.

A pause. Yuuri stares down at his hands. “I don’t know.”

Viktor takes in a shaky breath. His knees suddenly feel weak and he collapses onto the bed.

"Then what have you come to tell me?” he says. “Why are you here?”

“I miss you,” Yuuri says simply. “I can’t dance for you anymore, but that shouldn’t mean I can’t see you anymore. I said I’d be here.”

“Is this your way of trying to get me to fall in love with you?”

“No! I--I don’t know. Can’t I just--”

“I’m not him, you know,” Viktor says. “I’m not the man you fell in love with. I can’t give you anything.”

“I’m not asking for anything,” Yuuri says. “I just wanted to see you again. I thought--This is a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.” He gets up abruptly and moves to get out but Viktor is at his side in a moment, holding on.

“What did you think?”

Yuuri looks away. His brown eyes are shining with tears.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Don’t go,” Viktor says. “I don’t know why but I like spending time with you as well, but… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not hurting me.”

Viktor wants to call him out on his lie, tell him how clearly Yuuri shows his hurt, how his eyes are like shattered glass whenever he looks at Viktor and Viktor hates himself for being the reason for it. Hates himself because he can’t be the person Yuuri needs.

“I’m not the man you fell in love with.” Don’t look at me and see him. I don’t know how to love you.

“Vi--Viktor.” He says Viktor’s name strangely, just a hint of an accent; elongating the vowels like he’s cradling each syllable against his heart.  _ Vik-tor-u.  _ Viktor never knew that one word could hold so much love. “I never stopped loving you.”

Viktor almost lets out a sob. He doesn’t know this man, this amazing, inexplicable man who loves without question, who loves something who can only hurt him, who doesn’t let go of something that Viktor has already lost.

He doesn’t know what he could have possibly done to deserve a love like that.

“Perhaps you should.” 

Yuuri jerks away from his grasp as if burned. He faces Viktor, eyes burning with endless determination and compassion.

“Never,” he says.

Viktor’s heart sinks. He can see, in that moment, how someone like him would have been drawn to someone like Yuuri; a moth circling a flame, coming closer and closer because he’s mesmerized, because Yuuri’s eyes burn with a passion that seems endless. He can almost see it if he closes his eyes; graceful limbs and music coming from his soul. Only the ones with true hearts, who feels everything so fully and so viscerally that it can’t help but spill over and touch everyone around him, can find true beauty. Viktor had been like that once, before he had given everything all he had, but in all the wrong ways.

He can see all the ways he can love Yuuri in the tilt of his head, the shape of his mouth. All of a sudden, Viktor is filled with his burning need. He needs to see Yuuri, truly see Yuuri, in the only way he knows how.

“Dance with me,” he blurts out. He doesn’t intend for the words to come out of his mouth, but he does mean them. 

Yuuri’s eyes widen.

“What are you--”

“Dance with me.”

“You know we can’t--”

“I’ll close my eyes. I won’t see a thing.” He runs a gentle hand down Yuuri’s arm. Arm’s that he’s held; arms that he’s loved. Something that cannot be taken away, no matter how powerful the curse. Viktor feels it in every breath he takes, in the empty spaces in his chest. It exists in the gap between Yuuri’s lips, the flutter of his eyes.

He is no longer the man who learned to love Yuuri Katsuki but that isn’t the kind of thing that can ever be taken away.

I love you, he wants to say, I would die for you. You are the most beautiful thing in the world and there is nothing I wouldn’t give to see you in a crown of blue flowers.

They aren’t his words, not in the way it matters, but at the same time they are. Viktor knows it’s true from the pain in his chest. Does it matter if they belonged to who he once was or could have been? Viktor Nikiforov loves Yuuri Katsuki and there is nothing in this world that can change that.

He can so easily love Yuuri, but not yet. It’s something he can learn. For someone as beautiful as Yuuri, Viktor can learn anything.

“You said you didn’t want to hurt me,” Yuuri says.

“I’m trying not to,” Viktor says. “And you’re hurting right now. Dance with me, Yuuri.”

“We can’t--”

“Trust me. You shouldn’t have to hide from me anymore.”

Yuuri breathes shakily and takes Viktor’s hand in his. He wraps the other one around his waist.

“Alright,” he says. “Close your eyes. Swear you’re not going to open them.”

Viktor does. Then, he leans down and catches Yuuri’s lips in his. Yuuri’s lips are sweet and salty. He smells like the sea.Yuuri leans his head against Viktor’s shoulder and places his arm around his waist. They sway to a music that only knows them, telling the stories only they know.

In the darkness of his own mind, in the arms of a man he does not know, Viktor finally finds the turmoil of the past few hours dissipating.

I love you. I love you. I love you. The words are caught in the throat of the man he never was.

I’m sorry, he wants to say instead, I never wanted to leave you, but those words aren’t his to say, either. 

“I’ll stay with you,” he murmurs. “Forever.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


(Putting the crown of blue flowers on his lover’s head is the easiest thing in the world, far easier than anything he’s ever done. It was given to him by the greatest, and now he is passing it on and his heart could not be lighter.

On the night of their wedding, they had wrapped their arms around each other, spinning each other under moonlight. His lover’s face shone brighter than any god and he will gladly kneel at his feet.

The smile on his lover’s face is worth it; the stars shine in his eyes and the sun rises from the gap between his teeth. 

It is a night filled with laughter, bright against the wandlight. Showers of flowers fall around them, their friends cheer below, and above them is the unchanging moon. 

In his hand is the man he loves. 

He feels so much joy it almost hurts. It’s the kind of pain he welcomes.

Then, dawn comes. Then, the worst.

Sharp claws suddenly buried in his shoulder, ripping him away from safe arms.

He falls.

A woman’s voice in his ears, jagged lips grating against his skin. “He is your downfall,” it whispers.

And then, nothing.

Darkness.)


	3. Chapter 3

( The boy, with his fine hair hanging just past his shoulders, is barely old enough to fly higher than four feet when he meets  _ her. _

He knows the stories, like everyone does, knows how their kind had been the first to take to the skies, the first to spread their arms and dance alongside the stars. Their kind had been the ones who first taught wizardkind their secrets, the ones who chose the best of all of them and crown them.

The crown is passed on from the greatest to the greatest, as long as they are great enough to bear it. Few ever are.

He had been wandering the lonely castle halls one summer night, feet slapping against cold stone floors. Dance has already filled his bones, his blood, his soul. It makes him easy prey. She tells him that they had not crowned anyone in over a century. She tells him that he will be the next, when he is grown and he gives his heart to them, if he is willing.

There are many things she does not tell him, although he will find out soon enough.

The boy lifts his chin, smiles as he imagines blue flowers nestled against his long hair, and agrees.)

  
  


~0~

  
  


Yuuri slots into Viktor’s life with such ease that he can’t help be anything but terrified. He is quiet, almost shy, except when he’s not. Except when Viktor manages to draw him out and his eyes sparkle and he leans into Viktor as if he can’t help it. 

He sits at Viktor’s side and they talk about everything and nothing. And at night, in the darkness of Viktor’s rooms, with only the strength of Yuuri’s arms guiding him, they dance. 

In Viktor’s arms, Yuuri dances as if it will be his last. He grips Viktor’s hand hard enough to hurt. He teaches Viktor muggle dances, hands gently guiding him; the waltz, ballroom, a strange one called the Macarena. He laughs hard enough to sound like crying or maybe it was the other way around. Viktor learns each line of Yuuri’s body by touch, the exact curve of his spine, the angle of his shoulders, the tilt of his lips.

Two weeks passes, although it feels like an eternity; like Viktor can exist in those stolen moments forever.

Yura disapproves of the time they spend together but Viktor doesn’t care. Lilia disapproves but Viktor doesn’t care, either. Chris is resigned, though Viktor knows he’s worried as well. He and Yuuri carefully don’t talk about the performance, even though Viktor knows they should.

It’s a tenuous bliss that they’ve created and Viktor is just waiting for it all to fall apart, but until then, he will savor every moment he has.

Time with Yuuri, Viktor has come to discover, is time well spent. It’s time in the summer sun, exploring muggle London. It’s quiet companionship and ringing laughter, it’s feeling lighter than he has in years. It’s the feeling of being in a dream, when the shadow of waking up is but a distant memory, and all the things that shouldn’t make sense does, and all the things that shouldn’t be real just are. Sometimes Yuuri’s hand twitches, like he wants to take Viktor’s, but he never does, never bridges the distance between them and for that Viktor is grateful.

However, there are times when grief hangs over Yuuri like a veil, days when he can’t make himself meet Viktor’s eyes, days when he locks himself in small rooms and refuses to come out. Times when he retreats and Viktor cannot draw him out, no matter how hard he tries.

The knowledge that Yuuri is hurting should be enough to stay away, and it almost is but Yuuri seems as determined to stay as Viktor is to leaving. Whenever he tries to pull away, Yuuri finds some way of reaching out. Viktor can never deny him anything.

(“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Steady hands held in shaking ones. One tries to be strong, the other is tired of being weak.

“You don’t get to decide that for me.”)

Viktor is helplessly falling towards a collision course and he has no idea what will come after. It will hurt, though, of that he is certain; and for better or worse, it will happen.

“Tell me about Hasetsu again,” Viktor asks. He had caught Yuuri just as he was leaving practice, exhausted but pleased. He’s dancing better, he had told Viktor, not falling as much. Viktor thinks that it’s a strange dilemma for a blue crowned to have but he doesn’t say so. Yuuri’s happiness is more important than his confusion.

The look in his eyes isn’t quite happy whenever they find Viktor waiting for him, but it is still filled with affection; it’s still enough for Viktor to hold onto. Viktor has taken to walking Yuuri back to his rooms, taking advantage of every moment he can have. They’re walking slowly, taking in the sights of muggle London because Viktor is still fascinated and Yuuri wants something familiar.

“It’s quiet,” Yuuri says. “It’s home.”

Viktor is struck by the image of sea and seagulls, of a quiet town that seemed to exist half in dreams. The city  they’re walking in seems like a distant memory.

“Like being in a dream,” Viktor murmurs. Yuuri turns to him, surprised.

“You always said that. Before. I never understood what you meant.”

Viktor smiles thinly and doesn’t answer. The muggle world is steady in all the ways that the magical world is not. It’s not something that will suddenly disappear underneath your feet or lead you to places that make the ground irrelevant.

It makes sense. It’s constant and unmoving and it lends itself well to being learned and being loved.

(The echoes of bare feet slapping against cold stone floors was the only comfort he had during those long summer nights where it seems he is the only soul to exist in such an old castle. Moonlight cuts through the aged halls, striking through him with a path he does not know. Giving him the knowledge that there are places where the fear of falling doesn’t exist.)

“I manifested during dance practice when I was six,” Yuuri says. “I just started flying around in the middle of a pirouette. It was pretty funny, considering. My parents panicked when they found out, though.”

Viktor snorts. “Your ministry must have enjoyed covering it up.”

“I don’t think they actually did,” Yuuri says thoughtfully and laughs at Viktor’s expression. “We’re a small town. There’s really no point in trying to keep it secret.”

“And they just  _ let  _ you?”

Yuuri shrugs. “Why not?” he says.

Viktor shakes his head. He can’t quite believe it, not when every single day of his life has been drilled to separate himself from the muggles.

“You don’t have to hide,” Yuuri says, taking his hand in his. “It’s easier to be yourself there.”

“That sounds amazing,” says Viktor.

“It’s not as good as it sounds,” Yuuri says after a long pause. “People keep coming to me when they’re sick and well… I’m really bad at healing anything.”

Viktor lets out a laugh despite himself and Yuuri gives him a smile brighter than the sun. He reaches out and takes Viktor’s hand in his. It gets easier every time; more natural and less like he’s stealing moments from the man he isn’t.

It happens almost on instinct; Viktor leans down and presses a kiss to Yuuri’s knuckles. Yuuri starts but doesn’t pull away.

“What are you--”

“I don’t know,” Viktor says. “Being with you is unreal sometimes.”

Yuuri himself is a dream, something Viktor never knew he lost. He is the scent of home curling around you, he is taking to the sky without the air crushing your lungs, he is spreading your arms towards the sun and knowing you are free.

He is Yuuri and Viktor can see so easily how he fell in love with him.

“You don’t have to hide,” Yuuri says quietly. “Not with me. What do you need?”

Yuuri always asks that, as if it’s his job to provide all of it; as if he can pull Viktor out from this curse if he tries hard enough or believes enough or does enough. Viktor wants to tell him that it’s not worth it, that he’s not worth Yuuri’s protection or his love. He has nothing to offer in return.

But being with Yuuri soothes an ache Viktor didn’t know he had. His chest feels lighter, the world seems brighter whenever he’s in Yuuri’s presence. Everything just becomes so much easier.

“I--I want you.”

A long silence. Yuuri’s eyes are wide, and there’s the broken glass in them again. It cuts through Viktor’s heart, just as it should.

“I want to learn how to love you,” Viktor says. “I want to  _ love  _ you.”

Yuuri closes his eyes and releases a shuddering breath. They’ve reached the place where Yuuri is staying: a large muggle building in the center of the city. He’s sharing his rooms with his sister and Pichit Chulanot.

“This is a bad idea.”

“I know.”

A sound that’s between a laugh and a sob. “Okay,” Yuuri says, “okay,” and kisses Viktor. His lips are gentle, tentative and unsure. Viktor leans into the kiss like a man drowning. This is what he’s lost; something he didn’t even know he had. Whatever kind of man the Viktor who lost his  memory was, he was the luckiest man in the world.

He’s gone now and Viktor who is here now is only him. There is nothing he can offer, but Yuuri still loves him enough for this. Perhaps there is still some of that luck left; perhaps he’s always just lucky when it comes to Yuuri.

Whatever the case, Viktor doesn’t want to let go.

Yuuri loves him still and Viktor wants to love him, because Yuuri deserves better; he deserves someone better than a man who does not know him.

He kisses Yuuri again. It’s tinged with desperation and regret. His heart feels like it’s trying to beat a hole out of his chest. A kiss, Yuuri had said, just a kiss to make everything alright again, but it’s a kiss he cannot give. Perhaps he loves Yuuri but it’s not the kind of love Yuuri needs, not the one that will take away the pain in his eyes or rebuild all that is broken.

Viktor kisses him and savors every moment of it he has left.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against Yuuri’s lips.

He pulls away and apparates away before Yuuri can answer. Yuuri doesn’t follow him, couldn’t have followed him, but Viktor doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t want him to.

  
  


~0~

  
  


It’s almost laughably predictable how he finds himself in Lilia’s room after making a potentially ruinous decision, trying to explain to her some hairbrained plan that might just save him.

In some ways, Viktor hasn’t really changed at all.

“No,” she says halfway through.

Viktor is once again staring at that hideous painting because it’s the easiest thing to look at. He thinks that that may have been intentional, to remind the visitor exactly who they’re speaking to. Lilia is standing at her desk, lips pursued in annoyance.

“It makes more sense,” he says. “Yura and Altin would be better suited for it.”

“You want to change their choreography completely. Two weeks before opening night.”

“I think they can do it.”

“Why?”

Viktor shrugs. He’d meant to ask her much earlier, before everything else happened, mostly as a precursor to his actual plan.

“They can do it,” he says again.

“It’s not a question of what they can do, it’s what I’m willing to let  _ you. _ ”

“You’ve always let me do anything I want.”

“A mistake I have clearly never rectified.” Lilia sighs. “Fine. Do as you wish. You always have. What is your other request?”

Viktor takes a deep breath and stares at the painting as he answers. Lilia’s had the thing ever since he was a boy. She’s always taken it everywhere with her, no matter where the stage takes her. Viktor has always hated it. He thought, and still thinks, that it takes a special kind of narcissism to watch yourself dance over and over again in the comfort of your own quarters, when the only one who can adore your performance is yourself.

“I want to dance as well,” he says. “With Yuuri.”

Lilia falls still. “No,” she says. “Absolutely not.”

“I know it sounds risky but--”

“Vitya,” Lilia says sharply. “You may not remember, but you have had this exact same conversation with Yakov before. He let you run wild. I will not. It is more than your career at stake this time.”

Viktor tenses. “This is different.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m trying to break this curse.”

“He told you.”

“Of course he did.”

Lilia couldn’t have been more than sixteen in the painting, face still full of youth and joy. Viktor wonders if Lilia mourns the loss of that girl. She always talks of phoenixes and rebirth, never about the death that came before it.

“You do not have to go back,” she says. “He would not want you to, either.”

“I’m not moving forward, either.”

“And what does Katsuki think of your plan?”

Viktor doesn’t meet her eyes as he focuses on the painting. The young girl there is wrapped in grey silks, tangling herself more and more into a complex web of lines that no one can make sense of, and then a leap. She spreads her arms and it all falls away, like a butterfly shedding its cocoon, her dress a marvel of color.

Rebirth. 

(No one asked about the grey caterpillar that disappeared under the tangle of webs. Only marvels about the beauty that emerged.)

“You haven’t told him, have you? Katsuki is many things, but he’ll never let any harm come to you. He will never agree to this.”

“He’ll listen to sense,” Viktor says. “He loves him.”

“He loves  _ you _ . And you love him. That hasn’t changed.” 

"Not enough, apparently. Not enough to break this damn curse.”

Lilia walks over to the painting, turning her back to him. Viktor finds it hard to see Lilia, who stands straight and erect, in the graceful girl in the painting who seems made of air. “Dance has always been the most important thing in our lives. You think it has the answers to your problem?”

“Doesn’t it always?”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing this?” Viktor has to fight down a smile. She’s considering it. He always gets his way, one way or the other.

“I’ll figure it out,” Viktor says.

“That isn’t enough--”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“You will die,” Lilia says. 

“I’ll be reborn,” he corrects. “Isn’t that what it’s always about?”

Lilia regards him, eyes unreadable. He’s known her since he was a boy, but he still can’t help but squirm under her gaze. Yakov was the one who made him the most famous air dancer in the world, but it was Lilia who made him the greatest. It’s nights with her sharp voice and unforgiving eyes where he learned to soar. He danced to burnt hands and broken bones because of her, producing only perfection and claiming his crown.

He had become all that he dreamed to be  and more, though some part of him regrets that. He had sworn his everything to a strange creature when he was a boy in exchange for the promise of glory. She has loomed over everything he has done but never anything more. Sometimes, it feels like it was Lilia who came to collect.

“You are my greatest creation,” she says, “but sometimes I think you have learned all the wrong lessons.”

Viktor’s life as he knows it is one of regret and one of failure. He wouldn’t mind dying for a better one, a life where he remembers every moment he has with the man he loves; one where he understands all the ways in which he is good.

“Perhaps,” he says. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

“You regret the sacrifices you’ve made?”

“I regret losing a better life.”

“It was your choice, you know,” Lilia says. “Giving up dance. Retiring. It was the first thing you asked me when you woke up from the attack, when you realized what happened. You asked why you aren’t dancing and assumed it was because of an injury. You chose it, because of him. It caused quite a scandal when the blue-crowned dancer suddenly disappeared and came back with a Yuuri Katsuki wearing his crown. You told me that it was a better life.”

Viktor’s throat thickens and his eyes burn. The girl in the painting spreads her arms and explodes in a burst of color. For the first time, Viktor thinks he sees a glint of pain past her smile.

“If Katsuki agrees…” There is almost a sense of loss and regret in Lilia’s voice when she says, “Do as you wish Vitya, you always have.”

  
  


~0~

  
  


He makes his way out of Lilia’s rooms, heart thudding in his chest, to find Yuuri waiting for him in the hallway, face unreadable.

“I’m sorry for disappearing on you,” Viktor says. “I didn’t…” He trails off, not quite sure how to explain. 

“You spoke with Lilia,” Yuuri says.

“I did.”

“You left the door open, you know.”

Viktor’s heart climbs to his throat. “How did you find me?”

Yuuri’s eyes are like stone. His mouth is set in a grim line against a face that is devoid of emotion.

“Viktor,” he says. “Whatever we’re doing now, let’s end it.”

Viktor freezes. He feels all the air leave his body.

“What?”

“I heard what you said to Lilia.” Strangely enough, this might be the steadiest Yuuri’s gaze that Viktor has ever seen. Usually, his eyes flit back and forth everywhere, absorbing everything around him but too nervous to linger. Now, his eyes are as steady as the ground, trained on Viktor. Just on Viktor. “I won’t do it. Whatever you’re thinking, I’m not doing it. It’s not worth it.”

“Yes it is,” Viktor says. “It’s worth everything.”

“ _ Why _ ?”

“Because you want him back and I can give him back to you.”

“Do you really think we were worth so little to each other?” Yuuri asks lowly. “That we’d lose each other for a stupid dance?”

“That’s what I would do.”

Yuuri takes a step back. His gaze doesn’t leave Viktor once. The room is freezing. Viktor hears a cold voice in his ear, laughing, mocking.

“Dance is the only thing I have, Yuuri,” Viktor says. “I don’t know what else to give you. I don’t know how else to  _ be. _ ”

“I’m not asking for  _ anything. _ ”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“You’re worth more than some dance, Viktor. You are worth more than the memories you lost.”

Viktor doesn’t say anything. That has never been true, not for him. It may have been true for the Viktor who remembers Yuuri, though he can’t quite believe that, either.

“ _ Why are you so willing to throw your life away _ ?”

“There is nothing to throw away.” His voice is flat and bitter, almost amused. He thinks he should be shouting but he isn’t. His fists are clenched at his side and he’d like nothing more than to fly away, to dissipate into the air and not have this conversation, but Yuuri’s eyes are steady and he can’t help but stay. “This is just emptiness. I don’t know what kind of life I had with you, but it can’t be worse than this.”

Viktor had just been a boy when he swore to give everything to dance. It had been a child’s promise and he is no longer a child. All he knows is that all he remembers are days when everything feels too heavy, when his feet are weighed down to the ground and every step is a challenge. He remembers being in the air and there is lightness yes, but also the inevitability of powerlessness. He remembers when he goes high enough and spins so fast that it gets hard to breathe, how it feels like it will never end. He remembers the feeling of falling. He doesn’t think he’s ever known what it is to soar.

He doesn’t know the Viktor Nikiforov who had come to love Katsuki Yuuri, who had come to deserve him, but his life can’t possibly be worse than what he has now.

“I want to live,” he says.

“You are alive.”

Not really, not like this. There’s something to be said about making a world out of a person, but Viktor has already made his world out of beauty, out of elegance, and it’s left him with nothing else. With Yuuri, he can have something else to live for; this way, he can have a way of seeing the world beyond the stage, beyond this cold stagnation the shadows trapped him in.

“I’m sorry I can’t love you properly,” Viktor says. Yuuri turns. Fury does not fit on his face. Yuuri, who is always so full of emotion and contradictions that it spills over every piece of him, wears rage too close to sadness. Too close to desperation. He wears it too close to apathy. He doesn’t let go of Viktor’s hand but it feels like a chasm has opened up between them. Viktor can’t make sense of any of it.

“You don’t know me at all, Vitya,” Yuuri says coldly.

Viktor doesn’t comment on his name; it feels right somehow, for a conversation like this. He doesn’t know how to take this Yuuri, so familiar and so distant at the same time.

“I’ve only ever known dance,” he says. “Maybe he was telling the truth when he said that that was hw he loved you. Maybe I could only ever know things through dance. Maybe I’m broken that way.”

“You’re not broken,” Yuuri says. He reaches for Viktor, as if he can’t help it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” Viktor says.

“Vitya--”

“I’m not going to die,” he says softly. “I’m going to wake up.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“It will,” Viktor says. “I trust you.”

Yuuri’s gaze wavers for a moment, grip tightening on Viktor’s hands. Then, he lets go as if it hurts, and takes a step back, then another, and another, and another. Viktor feels his entire body go cold. The shadows are cackling. She knows a battle lost.

“Yuuri…” he says.

“I’m sorry Vitya,” Yuuri says. His gaze has hardened, like steel. “I’m not going to lose you again.”

“Yuuri please.” But he can’t make himself continue and Yuuri doesn’t say anything else. All of a sudden, the two of them are at an impasse; trapped in an empty hallway with no intention of budging.

Viktor swallows the lump in his throat. Time’s up and as usual, it’s all his fault.

  
  


~0~

  
  


Days pass. Viktor doesn’t see Yuuri; he is as skilled at avoiding Viktor as he is with anything else, which is to say, he is very skilled.

Viktor doesn’t know if he even has the right to see Yuuri after everything’s that happened. 

The shadows follow him at all hours and they’re getting harder to ignore. He keeps seeing flashes of things he doesn’t know, of golden robes and quiet towns, laughter by the seaside and a muggle road full of peace. He thinks that maybe the curse wouldn’t just wait for him to utterly destroy everything around him, not when it can take him right in the middle of trying to fix it.

He looks for Yuuri, waits for him, even if he knows it’s a bad idea. Yuuri is a drug, the one thing that can soothe the ache in his chest. 

It’s plenty unhealthy but Viktor is probably an expert on unhealthy.

It takes every single of begging and threatening power that he has to convince Chris to tell him where Yuuri practices at night. Chris is probably the expert on enabling all of Viktor’s bad ideas.

“Pichit will kill me if this goes wrong,” he tells Viktor. “Don’t be stupid.”

He waits outside while the music plays. He knows it doesn’t really mean anything, that air dancers dance without music all the time, but he doesn’t have that much of a death wish. He just wants to talk to Yuuri. That’s all.

It’s not going to go wrong. He has to believe that much.

Viktor hears the music stutter to a stop and his heart climbs to his chest. Something’s wrong. He walks in just in time to see Yuuri fall.

He thinks he may have screamed. He definitely runs. Yuuri flies higher, much higher, than any other dancer, which makes it all the more terrifying when he falls. There’s no saving falls like that, just wait for the inevitable. the idea sends a shiver of terror running through Viktor’s body.

Except Yuuri does manage to save the fall. Just barely, but he manages to slow the fall just about a foot above the ground. He still crashes but it’s not fatal. He’ll be bruised and hurting but alive.

“Vitya.” Yuuri sounds surprised. Breathless. And underneath all that, pain. “What are you doing here?”

Viktor opens his mouth and finds that he cannot answer. His knees buckle from underneath him and he finds himself staring into Yuuri’s eyes.

“Oh Merlin, are you hurt? Do you need help--God--”

“Vitya,” Yuuri says. “Calm down.”

“You fell.”

“I always fall.”

“From  _ that high _ ?”

Yuuri shrugs, pulling himself up with a wince. He curls his body to make himself smaller, leaning his chin on his knee and doesn’t meet Viktor’s eyes.

“Like I said, I’m not a very good air dancer.”

Viktor opens his mouth but finds that he can’t speak. There’s so many things he wants to say and he doesn’t even know where to start.

“The answer’s still no,” Yuuri says quietly. “If that’s why you’re here. I’m not going to help you kill yourself.”

Viktor stills. He stares at the blooming bruise on Yuuri’s cheeks, at the way he curls in on himself, obviously hiding an injury. “Isn’t that what you’re doing right now? Trying to kill yourself?”

Yuuri’s head whips around. He glares at Viktor. 

“You knew I would be dancing here,” he says. “You came to see me.”

“It’s not like that.”

“And my fall wasn’t like that, either.”

They glare at each other and for the first time, Viktor sees someone in Yuuri who could have been blue crowned. Yuuri is beautiful and lovely and spilling over with music in his soul, but the crown needs much more than that. The ones who wear it want it more than anything else.

For the first time, he sees in Yuuri someone who fights with all his beauty and grace and skill for everything he loves; who loves rarely but loves so freely and unashamedly that nothing can possibly compare to it. He sees in Yuuri someone who always gets what he wants, as long as he wants it hard enough. Beauty is easy to find. The fight for the crown is an endless battle, and only those willing to defend it, willing to claw their way up with blood, sweat, and tears, who break so easily and use the jagged shards of their souls to cut through anything that gets in their way, win.

Dance is a battle as much as it is an art, or maybe those two things are one and the same. Either way, only the winners are remembered.

“I think that you’re a bit like me,” Viktor says. “I think you’re not one to settle for something less than perfect. I think dance is such a large part of your life you can’t imagine living without all that pain. I think that dance has always been the most important thing to the both of us.”

“Not more than you.”

“I’m not the man you love.” Viktor won’t be that person, not until he gets his memories back. He won’t be able to give Yuuri what he needs.

“Stop that,” Yuuri snaps, angry. “I’m not doing it so if that’s all you’re going to ask, you should leave.”

“I need it to--”

“Leave.”

Viktor stays. Yuuri seems to hurt more than a fall of that height could have made. It’s hard to tell in the darkness, but he thinks Yuuri is blinking back tears.

“Yuuri,” he says. “Are you hurt?”

Yuuri’s shoulders stiffen. “I’m fine.”

“Yuuri.” Viktor sighs. “Let’s put everything aside right now. You’re hurt and you need help. Please let me help you.”

Yuuri doesn’t answer. He stares at Viktor for a long time, then slowly unfurls himself. He reaches out a hand, the arm a livid purple, and holds onto Viktor.

“Alright,” he says.

  
  


~0~

  
  


Viktor ends up half-carrying Yuuri to his rooms after healing the worst of the bruising. They don’t speak. Viktor finds that he can’t quite meet Yuuri’s eyes. After he deposits Yuuri to Pichit Chulanot’s arms and makes sure that he’s going to be alright, he returns to the practice rooms. There is a hint of pink on the center of the stage, where Yuuri’s fall had pierced skin. Viktor wonders how many times he’s fallen, how many times blood has been scrubbed out of these wooden floors.

He tries to dance but his mind is too scattered for anything. Dance is doing nothing to calm him down and there’s no story he can tell. Nothing he wants to say. Nothing he can do to fix what he’s done. His movements feel jerky and ugly. Hours pass in nothingess, just seas upon seas of frustrations and dead ends.

He comes back the next day, and the next, and the next. Nothing changes. His dance is full of anger and agitation and nothing else. Just an endless anxiety trapped in spins and arabesques.

He’s almost relieved when Yura kicks the door open in that dramatic way of his on the fifth day. The performance is so close and Viktor is falling apart.

“Viktor,” he says. “We need to talk.”

“Yuuri sent you.”

“Contrary to what you may believe,” Yura says. “I don’t answer to that idiot.”

“Then why in Merlin’s name are you here?” He stretches and yelps when he pulls a muscle. He’s too tense. Too agitated. Too scared.

“I thought we already agreed you are not going to be an idiot,” Yura says.

“How’s Yuuri?”

“He’ll live to dance another day and you didn’t answer my question, you ass.”

“I’m being perfectly sane,” Viktor says. “Everything I’m doing makes perfect sense.”

“You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

Viktor ignores him. He takes to the air and spins, spins and spins and spins. If you go slow, it’s only a matter of staring at one spot to combat the dizziness, but if its too fast, you can only close your eyes and get used to the vertigo.

He’s going too fast to be sane right now.

“Katsuki will be fine to dance for opening night,” Yura says. “He’s used to that kind of thing.”

“He fell more than fifty feet. Do you honestly think that’s comforting?”

Arabesque here, a leap there. It’s a stupid dance, with nothing to say, meaning absolutely nothing. He rises higher, hoping to clear his head. It’s not working. His thoughts are muddled, confused. He knows what he wants, he knows what Yuuri needs and those are two very different things.

Shit. 

Another leap. Climb higher. Twirl. Leap and leap into what? He thinks the dance would be better with a partner but that’s just missing the point completely. Higher. Higher. Higher.

Yura speaks very slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “Katsuki… He gets lost in his own head sometimes. You know how hard those spells are to maintain.”

Viktor knows the feeling but he also knows the importance of the illusion of perfection.

“He’s blue crowned.”

“He’s been getting better at it,” Yura says. “And he never danced for the crown. Not like us.”

“Then what does he dance for?”

Yura manages to catch him, his gaze piercing into Viktor’s skin and his hand coming to grip Viktor’s arm.

“Love,” he says.

Viktor draws back as if burned, he tries to run but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain the spell.

“You can’t just dance to run away from me.” Yura is suddenly very close, chasing after him. He won’t catch up, not right now, not while Viktor keeps going higher.

“Watch me,” he says.

Higher. Higher. He loses his focus for a moment and falters. Stupid. The spins are sloppy. It’s so easy to fall. He’s not finding himself where he wants to be. He’s not really sure where that is, though.

Suddenly, there is a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. Yura doesn’t look as furious as he usually is. He almost looks concerned, which is probably worse.

“Go away Yura.”

“Fine,” Yura says, decidedly not going away. “You don’t want to talk about Katsuki. It’s what I asked for, considering. Why did you change the choreography?”

Viktor shrugs. “I didn’t want it to be harder for you than it actually is.” He tries to throw off Yura’s hand, but his grip is surprisingly strong.

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“You’re talking about your first solo performance.”

Yura looks surprised. He falters and Viktor takes the opportunity to throw himself away. The two of them together in any sense is a bad idea. On a stage? That’s just tempting fate.

“You remember that?” Yura asks, eyes narrowed.

“Some of it,” Viktor admits. “Impressions mostly.”

(A boy full of anger but it’s an anger that comes from something. The boy is brimming with ambition and it’s an ambition that comes from something. A child’s dreams mixed with a determination bordering on obsession and filled with love.

Perhaps that was the most fascinating thing about him: how he can be so selfish and selfless at the same time.)

“You didn’t have a problem forcing that on me.”

“There’s a difference,” Viktor says, “between forcing you to mature and making you do something anathema to everything you are.”

Yura snorts. “You should take your own advice, old man.”

Arabesque and then--But no, it’s much harder to fall if no one is there to catch him. Arms up in fourth position but what is he reaching for? There’s only empty air around him.

Viktor doesn’t understand. Solo performances used to come easy to him. He doesn’t quite know what’s happening.

“Stop pretending you don’t need Katsuki,” Yura says. “It’s pathetic.”

“He doesn’t need  _ me. _ ”

“You don’t know much about him,” Yura says. He chases after Viktor, full of rage and determination. “Trust me when I say you’re wrong. The two of you are so in love it’s disgusting.”

Viktor ignores him and is about to find a way to fight him when he feels  _ it.  _

The room is suddenly colder. It suddenly becomes very hard to breathe. It’s a familiar feeling, one he’s known since he was a child. Viktor loses hold of the spell and he falls. Beside him, he sees Yura do the same.

Yura’s eyes widen as the woman stands before him, with her jagged lips and long claws but it’s suddenly not important. The world has narrowed down to her and Viktor. Exhaustion creeps into Viktor, paralyzing him with its spell. He is suddenly very, very tired of being threatened. Tired of justifications and tired of fights.

“I told you not to defy me,” she says. There is ice in her voice, seeping all the warmth from the room.

(Claws digging into his skin and a scream that is not his. 

A crown of blue flowers fall to the floor. But before that.

Before that:

A dance before an audience and he is not the one dancing. He sees graceful limbs filled with love in every angle. The figure is passion, is life, is love. He does not begrudge the blue crown taken from his fair head and bestowed onto the figure’s dark one.

The crowds cheer but his eyes are only for the graceful figure. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen in the world.

He does not see her in the shadows. Does not see the sneer on her lips. Jealousy is a cruel thing, even worse when plans are ripped apart. He does not remember promises broken, does not remember dreams owed, and debts unpaid.

He remembers love. Nothing else.)

“I don’t know why you’re angry with me,” he says. “I don’t know why you did any of this.”

“You gave him what you owe me.”

“You know what I think?” he asks. “I think you’re petty. I think you lost something and you wanted to use me to get it back. When I gave it away before you can claim it, you ruin the man I love just because you want to punish me.”

She inches closer. The air is suddenly colder; her grey gaze pierces into Viktor’s soul. He wants to say he’s not afraid, but it’s impossible not to be.

“And how do you know that?”

A claw is pressed to his cheek. She looms close enough that Viktor can smell her foul breath. Her gaze is distant, inhuman. She will never understand what it is to love, what sacrifice is, what true beauty is; she only knows how to get what she wants and how to destroy those that stop her.

“Because you’re afraid enough to try and tear us apart.”

“I can kill you.”

“You can’t,” he says. “Or you would have done it already.”

She screams and Viktor feels the entire world collapse.

  
  


~0~

 

(She does not belong. She does not understand. Sees only the pain in their art, none of anything else.

“Our art is one of love,” they tell her. “And about pain. You cannot take one from the other.”

They begin to strip her of her power and her lips open in a scream that tears her lips apart. But she is too powerful. She breaks free from their hold and runs. She knows old magic, dark spells that have long since been forbidden. She wraps herself in shadows, drawing power from things nothing else wants to look at. Her heart is full of rage, full of pain, ready to spill over and spread its poison onto others.

She runs.

Then, she finds a boy, small for his age and with too long hair, wandering the quiet halls of an an old castle. His entire form seems to be holding its breath, back erect, waiting for something.

Something a lot like grief paints his face, making it pale and ethereal. His heart is almost still in his chest. His quietness is one that looks a lot like death but the boy is very much alive; a soul struggling to coalesce into reality with each step. 

She appears in front of him. Blood drips from her lips and every part of her hurts but every pain is a step closer to perfection. She will take this child and turn him into something great.

“Bargain with me,” she says.)

 

~0~

  
  


“Vitya!”

“I’m really tired of losing consciousness,” Viktor says, rubbing the back of his head.

The practice room is in complete shambles, the south wall reduced to splinters. Yura is leaning against the wall. Altin is there as well, murmuring soft words in his ear. Yuuri’s arms are around him, face pale and tear-streaked. It’s an achingly familiar sight.

“What happened?” he asks.

“She was here,” Viktor says. “She was angry.”

“She--the one who cursed you.”

Viktor nods. “We need to move now before she does something worse--”

Yuuri’s face is pained. “We’re not doing it,” he says.

“Yes we are,” Viktor snaps. “She’s not going to stop unless we take her power from her. I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of hiding from her.”

“You know who she is? You’ve always known.”

“She’s a mistake. This is something I should have done years ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“ _ Please  _ Yuuri. I’ll tell you everything after this but I’m begging you, I need to end this right now. Please.”

Yuuri hesitates. He seems to be wavering. Perhaps he sees something Viktor worth saving. “It’s dangerous.”

“I’ll be fine. And you’ll get him back if it works, which it will.”

“Stop acting like you died,” Yuuri snaps. “You’re alive and here now. Nothing’s changed.”

“I don’t know enough about you,” Viktor says. “And if you knew enough about me, you can’t possibly love me.”

“You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to tell me how I can love you.” Anger is a strange expression on Yuuri’s face. He fills it with just as much emotion as he does every emotion but it doesn’t make him look beautiful. It’s almost easy to forget how anger is never beautiful and that Yuuri is just as capable of rage as he is of love.

Yuuri is human, so very human. Even in his anger, Viktor can see all the ways he loves. He is the greatest air dancer who has trouble with flying. He is a body full of contradictions and impossibilities seamlessly put together to create a person. Viktor feels as if he is falling.

Somehow, he can’t bring himself to care.

“I love you,” Yuuri says. “I will always love you. That hasn’t changed, and neither have you. Do you want to know why I love you? Because you look at me like I’m the most beautiful thing in the world, even when I’m too scared of my own shadow. I love you because you listen to all the stupid things I say like they’re the most important thing in the world. I love you because you have this ridiculous fascination of the muggle world and it’s a bit amazing. I love you because you love the ground almost as much as you love being in the air.”

And he goes on, talking and talking about things Viktor has done, things Viktor is as if they’re not inherent flaws but something worth loving. Yuuri paints this picture of something that is beautiful, something that is worth loving, except the brushstrokes are wrong. The brushstrokes are rough, jagged lines full of broken edges. The colors are wrong and the shapes are crooked, the movements stilted but Yuuri makes it sound lovely.

“You couldn’t possibly…” He trails off, voice cracking.

“I love you because you never stopped loving me even when you stopped knowing me,” Yuuri says. “I love you because you still love me, if you’d just let yourself.”

“Yuuri…”

“I’ll dance with you if that’s what you need,” Yuuri says. “But never, for one moment, doubt my love for you. And never doubt your love for me. Don’t you dare.”

Viktor doesn’t know who moves first, but suddenly Yuuri’s arms are around him as he struggles to stop himself from breaking.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

  
  


~0~

  
  


(This is the story of how they met:

They met through smiles, through quiet moments and stolen glances. They met with a drink in one hand and grief hanging over their hearts. They met when they were pretending to be something they were not.

They met to a fast-paced muggle song. They met in the sky, trying to keep pace with music that eluded them. They met in the breaths between laughter, where they looked into each other’s eyes and found the other’s true selves.

They met in life. They met in love. They met in each other’s arms.

All the rest comes after. But for one moment, the music seeped into their souls and their eyes sing with everything that is to come.)

  
  


~0~

  
  


Viktor can hear the murmur of the crowds just past the curtains surrounding the stage. His heart feels like it’s climbed into his throat and his hands are cold and clammy. In front of him, Yuuri is a sight to behold, wearing a blue tunic and long, black pants. The familiar crown of blue flowers rests gently on his dark head.

Viktor almost feels bare beside him. Yuuri had made him his own crown, despite Viktor’s protests.

“It won’t be the real thing,” he had murmured. “But I don’t want to dance alone up there. I want us to be together. As equals.”

Viktor hadn’t been able to say anything to that.

“I’ve never felt more nervous,” he says to Yuuri now.

“That’s usually my line,” Yuuri says, amused.

Viktor wonders how anyone like Yuuri can be so afraid. Their lives are so intertwined with dance that it’s impossible to know either completely without it. He wonders what parts of Yuuri he cannot say out loud. Those things that only come out through his art, both the beautiful and the ugly.

“Aren’t you nervous now?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri lets out a breath. “I always am.”

“Me too.” The shadows seems to seep into every crevice of the theatre but Viktor seems to be the only one who notices. This is his punishment and only his. She won’t injure the blue crowned and remind her kind of her existence.

Viktor hopes it’s enough to keep her rage at bay.

“I trust you,” Viktor says.

Yuuri’s lips twist into something that’s supposed to be a smile. His thumb is running gentle circles on Viktor’s palm. On his head, he wears the blue crown that Viktor gave him, that he danced for.

“I trust you,” Viktor says again.

“I know,” Yuuri says quietly. “I won’t let you fall.”

The two of them rise to the air, heads bent together, hands held close to their hearts. The curtains rise. The roar of the crowd seems almost irrelevant now that Viktor is lost in Yuuri’s arms. Viktor closes his eyes, going to a place where the shadows cannot touch him.

(The crown on Yuuri’s head is a warm weight lifted off of Viktor’s chest. It’s a happiness he has never known before Yuuri. It’s a happiness Yuuri showed him he could have.

Yuuri’s smile is brighter than the sun, than the moon and all the stars. He keeps looking around like he can’t quite believe what is happening is real. Viktor wants to sweep him into his arms and hold him forever. Then, he does because he can.

Because for the first time in a very long time, he is happy.)

They spin in the air. Viktor feels safer in Yuuri’s arms than he has in any other place. The murmur of the crowds, the swell of the music seems so very distant in his mind, not when he has this in his heart.

“Open your eyes.”

Viktor does. Yuuri’s face is hidden in the theatre’s half light. He seems more alive than Viktor has ever seen, full of the music in Viktor’s soul. He falls into Yuuri’s arms and presses their skin together.

Images pass through his mind: things he does not know. The taste of the sea and sand curling under his toes, the heat of a hot spring. He sees castles that are not castles and magic filling the air as if it’s meant to be there.

The shadows try to curl around his skin but they are nothing against the light Yuuri gives him.

Viktor hurts but it’s a good kind of pain; a pain that preludes something  _ good.  _

“Kiss me,” Yuuri says. There is a gentle smile on his lips, eyes lighter than the sky.

Viktor closes his eyes. He leans down and tastes the sea.

He opens his eyes and  _ remembers. _

 

 

_~fini~_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [tumblr](http://discowlng.tumblr.com) if you want to drop in and have a chat. I take requests there too, if you like.
> 
> And once again, thank you to everyone involved in making this event possible. You guys are the best.


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